Newland

*377 *678 An employee driving home from work on a day that he did not have any job duties outside of the office injured a third party. After a jury trial, the trial court imposed liability on the employer based on evidence that the employee regularly used his personal vehicle for work on other days. The employer contends there was no substantial evidence to support finding that the employee was driving in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the accident, because he was not required to use a personal vehicle that day.

We agree that an employee must be driving a personal vehicle in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the accident to extend *679 vicarious liability to an employer. Liability may be imposed on an employer for an employee's tortious conduct while driving to or from work, if at the time of the accident, the employee's use of a personal vehicle was required by the employer or otherwise provided a benefit to the employer. The evidence showed that the employee in this case was driving a routine commute to and from work on the day of the accident. He was not required to use his personal vehicle for work purposes that day, and his employer…

Sufficiently regular use of a personal vehicle for travel to perform employment duties, where it confers a substantial incidental benefit on an employer, can properly support application of the vehicle-use exception even if the vehicle was not required for such duties "at the time of the accident," as the majority today holds. ( Lobo v. Tamco (2010) 182 Cal.App.4th 297 , 302-303, 105 Cal.Rptr.3d 718 [evidence that "[d]uring 2005, the year of the accident, [the employee] visited customer sites [using his own car only] five times or fewer" is sufficient to support a conclusion the vehicle use exception applies even though the employee's accident occurred during his commute home on a day the vehicle was not needed for the employer]; see also Ducey v. Argo Sales Co. (1979) 25 Cal.3d 707 , 723, 159 Cal.Rptr. 835 , 602 P.2d 755 [mere fact that employee was not engaged in an errand for the employer on the day of the accident not treated as dispositive; Court further relies on facts showing the employee's "occasional[ ]" errands for her employer "were not conclusively shown to be a condition of her employment" to hold the vehicle use exception inapplicable]; Zhu v. Workers' Comp. Appeals…