P. v. Atlas-Hearn


Filed 4/22/11 P. v. Atlas-Hearn CA4/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS


California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. KINYA JEANETTE ATLAS-HEARN, Defendant and Appellant.

E049871 (Super.Ct.No. FSB804653) OPINION

APPEAL from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Kyle S. Brodie, Judge. Affirmed.
Kathryn Roth-Douquet, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.
Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General, Barry Carlton, and Gary W. Brozio, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
In this appeal defendant and appellant Kinya Jeanette Atlas-Hearn (defendant) challenges the jury’s verdicts finding her guilty of four felonies consisting of two counts of workers’ compensation insurance fraud in violation of Insurance Code section 1871.4, subdivision (a)(1) and two counts of insurance fraud in violation of Penal Code section 550, subdivision (a)(1), all of which stem from defendant’s claim that she suffered stress while working on December 5, 2006.^[1] The trial court suspended imposition of sentence in order to place defendant on probation for three years, a term of which required that she serve 180 days in county jail.
Defendant contends in this appeal that the trial court committed reversible error when it failed to instruct the jury sua sponte according to CALCRIM No. 224 regarding the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence to prove an element of the charged crimes. Defendant also contends the evidence is insufficient to support the jury’s implied finding that defendant harbored the intent necessary to commit the charged crimes.
We conclude defendant’s claims lack merit and therefore we will affirm.
FACTS
Defendant was employed by Omnitrans as a bus driver. On December 5, 2006, at 8:44 a.m. defendant called the company dispatch operator and reported that she had a headache and also had pain down her left arm as a result of stress caused by being assigned that morning to drive a small bus that did not accommodate all potential passengers. Defendant asked to be relieved so she could go to the clinic to obtain medical aid. Defendant’s request was granted and as a result she returned to the office where she reported her injury to a company field supervisor. Defendant signed a workers’ compensation claim form that described her injury as head and neck tension and pain. On a form entitled “Employee’s Report of Injury,” defendant wrote that she had “stress from driving busy route wa full bus #510 – passengers aggravating driver.” In the space on the form that asked for a description of how the accident occurred, defendant wrote, “Once the passenger started yelling and calling me name [sic] & beating on the windows I got a headache that made tention [sic] down my left side.” The field supervisor sent defendant to a doctor.
At U.S. Healthworks, Omnitrans’s medical provider, defendant completed an information form on which she described her injury as “tention [sic] down my left side with a headache blood pressure was high.” According to the “Doctor’s First Report of Occupation Illness or Injury” defendant reported “she had some unrulely [sic] passengers and she became very angry. She got a [headache] with pain radiating into left [cervical spine] area.” The examining physician directed defendant off work for the rest of her shift, and to return to her regular work shift the next day.^[2]
Paul Daneker, an Omnitrans field supervisor, investigated defendant’s workers’ compensation injury claim among other things by reviewing videotapes recorded by cameras installed in various locations inside the bus defendant drove on December 5, 2006, the date of her claimed injury.^[3] The videotapes did not reveal an incident or problem that would support defendant’s stress claim.
Additional facts will be recounted below as pertinent to our resolution of the issues defendant raises on appeal.
DISCUSSION
As noted above, defendant raises two claims in this appeal. We first address her contention that the trial court should have given CALCRIM No. 224 when instructing the jury.
1.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE JURY INSTRUCTION
With regard to circumstantial evidence, the trial court instructed the jury in this case according to CALCRIM No. 223, which explains the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence. The trial court also instructed the jury according to CALCRIM No. 225, which explains the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence to prove intent. Defendant contends in addition to intent the prosecution relied on circumstantial evidence to prove defendant knowingly made a material misrepresentation and submitted a false claim, both of which are elements of the charged crimes. Therefore, defendant asserts the trial court had a sua sponte duty to instruct the jury according to CALRCIM No. 224, which states, “Before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to conclude that a fact necessary to find the defendant guilty has been proved, you must be convinced that the People have proved each fact essential to that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. [¶] Also, before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to find the defendant guilty, you must be convinced that the only reasonable conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence is that the defendant is guilty. If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusions from the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonable conclusions points to innocence and another to guilt, you must accept the one that points to innocence. However, when considering circumstantial evidence, you must accept only reasonable conclusions and reject any that are unreasonable.” (CALCRIM No. 224.)
The legal principles that govern our resolution of this issue are long established and well settled. “In a criminal case the trial court is required to instruct the jury of its own motion upon the law relating to the facts of the case and upon matters vital to a proper consideration of the evidence. [Citation.]” (People v. Yrigoyen (1955) 45 Cal.2d 46, 49.) When the prosecution’s evidence of guilt is primarily circumstantial the trial court must instruct the jury sua sponte that “to justify a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the facts and circumstances must not only be entirely consistent with the theory of guilt but must be inconsistent with any other rational conclusion.” (Ibid.)
The prosecution in this case relied on direct evidence, namely defendant’s various statements explaining the cause of her stress and pertinent segments of the videotape recordings taken by the cameras in defendant’s bus, to prove the charged crimes. The video recording showed that although defendant’s bus was crowded, there were no rude or disruptive passengers either on the bus or attempting to board the bus. Defendant does not dispute that the statements and videotape are direct rather than circumstantial evidence. Instead defendant contends that the question of whether the conditions on the bus caused her to have stress, tension, and a headache “can only be determined by circumstantial evidence.”
As set out above in the statement of facts, on December 5, 2006, defendant identified specific circumstances as the cause of her stress, tension, and headache. If the evidence presented at trial showed that those specific circumstances did not exist, then the issue of whether defendant suffered stress is irrelevant because that stress could not have been work related and only work-related injuries are compensable under workers’ compensation. In other words, the trial court was not required to give CALCRIM No. 224 with respect to whether defendant suffered the claimed injury of stress, tension, and a headache because the evidence presented at trial did not support giving that instruction.
Moreover even if we were to view the evidence differently and were to conclude that the instruction was warranted by the evidence, the trial court’s failure to give the instruction could not have been prejudicial. As previously noted, the trial court instructed the jury on the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence. The trial court also instructed the jury in connection with the use of circumstantial evidence to prove intent that in order to find defendant guilty the jury had to find that the only reasonable conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence was that defendant had the required intent. Those instructions adequately advised the jury how to consider circumstantial evidence. Consequently, we conclude if the trial court had also given CALCRIM No. 224, it is not reasonably probable the jury would have reached a result more favorable to defendant in this case. (People v. Watson (1956) 46 Cal.2d 818, 836.)
2.
SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE TO PROVE INTENT
Defendant contends the evidence is insufficient to support the jury’s implied finding that on December 5, 2006, she had the intent to defraud when she signed the workers’ compensation application. We disagree.
“In addressing a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence supporting a conviction, the reviewing court must examine the whole record in the light most favorable to the judgment to determine whether it discloses substantial evidence—evidence that is reasonable, credible and of solid value—such that a reasonable trier of fact could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. [Citation.] The appellate court presumes in support of the judgment the existence of every fact the trier could reasonably deduce from the evidence. [Citations.] The same standard applies when the conviction rests primarily on circumstantial evidence. [Citation.]” (People v. Kraft (2000) 23 Cal.4th 978, 1053.)
Defendant does not dispute the evidence presented at trial and therefore acknowledges that the evidence includes the fact that she signed a workers’ compensation claim form, the effect of which was to state that she suffered an injury, specifically, stress, as a result of certain events that occurred at work on December 5, 2006. Defendant also signed a receipt acknowledging she received a workers’ compensation claim form on December 5, 2006. Defendant argued in the trial court as she does in this appeal that by signing the claim form she did not intend to obtain workers’ compensation and instead only intended to obtain medical treatment at her employer’s expense for her headache and tingling arm. Although the evidence supports defendant’s argument and therefore the jurors could have drawn the inference defendant urges, the evidence does not compel that they do so, particularly when considered in conjunction with evidence that defendant had filed other workers’ compensation claims with previous employers. Consequently, the evidence shows defendant knew the workers’ compensation claim process and the significance of signing a claim form.^[4] Moreover, the videotapes from the cameras in defendant’s bus show that the events defendant claimed were the sources of her stress, namely a disgruntled rider hitting the bus windows and yelling at defendant, and another disgruntled rider calling her a bitch, did not necessarily occur.^[5]
The cited evidence and related inferences support the jury’s implied finding that on December 5, 2006, when defendant signed the workers’ compensation claim form, she knew she had not suffered a work-related injury and that in submitting the form defendant intended to commit fraud or misrepresent a material fact, each of which are elements of the crimes charged in this case.^[6] For these reasons we must reject defendant’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
/s/ McKinster
J.
We concur:


/s/ Ramirez
P.J.
/s/ Hollenhorst
J.

---