Opinion

Petitioners, numerous farmworkers employed in the Salinas Valley, instituted the present proceeding to challenge a decision of the California Division of Industrial Safety (hereafter “division”) which determined that the “short-handled hoe” is not an “unsafe hand tool” within the meaning of an administrative regulation prohibiting the use of such unsafe tools. After conducting a series of hearings on the issue, the division concluded that because the harm allegedly caused by the short-handled hoe arises only from the manner in which the tool is used, and not from any inherent physical defect in the tool itself, prohibition of the use of the hoe under the existing regulation “would be[*306] an arbitrary and unreasonable extension of its authority.” Petitioners seek review of the agency’s ruling, contending primarily that the decision lacks the support of substantial evidence.

As discussed below, we have concluded that the decision of the agency must be set aside. In interpreting the applicable regulation to prohibit only the use of tools which are unsafe because of some intrinsic flaw in the tool itself, the division has given the regulation an unduly narrow interpretation, supported neither by the language of the regulation nor by the authorizing statutory provisions. As we explain, the governing provisions of the Labor Code speak in broad and generous terms in mandating California employers to do “every . . . thing reasonably necessary to protect the life and safety of employees” and in authorizing the division to promulgate and enforce regulations implementing the employers’ comprehensive responsibility. Because a defectively designed tool which causes injury as a result of the manner in which it must regularly be used can be just as hármful to employees as a defectively manufactured tool or a tool in poor condition, we believe the agency erred in confining the regulation’s ban of “unsafe tools” to improperly manufactured or improperly maintained implements. Accordingly, we remand the matter to the agency so that it can determine the question of whether the short-handled hoe is an “unsafe hand tool” under the proper legal standard.

Former section 6500 of the Labor Code authorized the Division of Industrial Safety to promulgate regulations prescribing “what safety devices, safeguards, or other means or methods of protection are well adapted to render the employees of every employment and place of employment safe as required by law or lawful order.” ^[1] Pursuant to this authority, the agency promulgated scores of detailed regulations prescribing specifications for all varieties of tools and industrial machin[*307] ery. One such regulation governs the use of hand tools, providing simply: “Hand tools shall be kept in good condition and be safely stored. Unsafe hand tools shall not be used.” (Italics added.) (Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 8, §3316.)

Beginning in September 1972, petitioner farmworkers sought to have the division apply this “unsafe hand tool” regulation to prohibit any California employer from requiring his employees to use the “short-handled hoe.” The “short-handled hoe” is approximately 12 inches long, and because of its truncated length farmworkers who use it must, for much of their working day, continuously bend over and work close to the ground. At three public hearings held before the Industrial Safety Board, ^[2] petitioners produced abundant medical evidence that the working position necessitated by the short-handled hoe results in severe cumulative back injuries for most farmworkers who use it over any appreciable length of time. ^[3] Many individual farmworkers also testified to the great physical agony and considerable disability which they had personally experienced from their use of the short-handled hoe.

At the hearings petitioners additionally attempted to demonstrate that the physical injuries resulting from the use of the short-handled hoe were[*308] largely unnecessary because a traditional, long-handled hoe was an acceptable substitute tool; petitioners submitted evidence demonstrating that a long-handled hoe is used for all crops in most farming regions of the United States. Many growers who appeared at the hearings, however, contested petitioners’ claim that a long-handled hoe was an acceptable substitute,” contending that specific agricultural problems posed by particular crops required the use of the short-handled hoe. These growers, as well as a few individual farmworkers, asserted that adequate weeding and thinning could not be efficiently accomplished with a long-handled hoe.

Several months after the hearings, the agency issued its decision, concluding that “the testimony failed to prove that the short-handled hoe was an unsafe tool within the purview of 8 California Administrative Code 3316.” The decision stated in relevant part: “This safety order [section 3316] bears primarily on the proper maintenance and care of hand tools and the prohibition of unsafe hand tools. The evidence dealt with the use of the short-handled hoe. The tool itself was not proved to be inherently dangerous. The board felt that a general prohibition of the short-handled hoe would be an arbitrary and unreasonable extension of its authority.”

Petitioners thereafter sought judicial review of the agency decision. Having determined that the case presented a significant issue respecting the proper scope of the agency’s authority in this field, we issued a writ of review. ^[4]

[*309] Initially, we must determine the appropriate standard of review applicable in this case. The respondent agency contends that the decision at issue here is a quasi-legislative act and, as such, is subject only to a limited judicial review to determine whether the administrative action was “arbitrary” or “capricious.” (See, e.g., Pitts v. Perluss (1962) 58 Cal.2d 824, 834-835 [27 Cal.Rptr. 19, 377 P.2d 83]; Ray v. Parker (1940) 15 Cal.2d 275, 310-311 [101 P.2d 665]; Brock v. Superior Court (1952) 109 Cal.App.2d 594, 603-604 [241 P.2d 283].) In characterizing the agency decision at issue as quasi-legislative, respondents take the position that throughout these proceedings petitioners have been urging the agency to promulgate a new regulation or general order, specifically banning the use of the short-handled hoe throughout California, and that the challenged decision is essentially a determination by the agency not to establish such a regulation. A review of the administrative proceedings and, indeed, of the agency’s decision itself, however, reveals the inaccuracy of this portrayal of the relief sought by petitioners.

The original petition filed with the agency did not request the promulgation of a new regulation directed at the use of the short-handled hoe, but instead sought enforcement of the existing regulation, section 3316—banning the use of “unsafe hand tools”—to prohibit the hoe’s continued use. ^[5] Moreover, during the administrative hearings petitioners’ counsel clearly indicated that the relief sought by petitioners in this proceeding was the enforcement of “the regulation that is on the books” and not the establishment of a new safety order. ^[6] Finally, the[*310] language of the administrative decision unmistakably indicates that the division itself viewed the question before it as a matter involving the interpretation and application of an existing regulation, for the decision is framed in terms of the petitioners’ failure to prove “that the short-handled hoe was not an unsafe hand tool within the purview of 8 California Administrative Code 3316.” (Italics added.) Accordingly, the agency decision under review here is not a quasi-legislative judgment declining to promulgate a new regulation, but rather involves the interpretation and application of an existing regulation.

In reviewing such an agency decision a court must determine whether the administrative agency applied the proper legal standard in evaluating the evidence before it. (See, e.g., Covert v. State Board of Equalization (1946) 29 Cal.2d 125, 133 [173 P.2d 545].) The interpretation of a regulation, like the interpretation of a statute, is, of course, a question of law (see, e.g., Merrill v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1969) 71 Cal.2d 907, 917 [80 Cal.Rptr. 89, 458 P.2d 33]; Bila v. Young (1942) 20 Cal.2d 865, 867 [129 P.2d 364]), and while an administrative agency’s interpretation of its own regulation obviously deserves great weight (see, e.g., County of Los Angeles v. Frisbie (1942) 19 Cal.2d 634, 643 [122 P.2d 526]; 4 Davis, Administrative Law (1958) § 30.12, pp. 258-259), the ultimate resolution of such legal questions rests with the courts. (See, e.g., Merrill v. Department of Motor Vehicles, supra, 71 Cal.2d 907, 917; Bodinson Mfg. Co. v. California E. Com. (1941) 17 Cal.2d 321, 325-326 [109 P.2d 935]; Schild v. Busch. (S.D. Tex. 1968) 293 F.Supp. 1353, 1354-1355.)

In the instant case, the initial issue turns upon whether the division properly interpreted section 3316’s reference to “unsafe hand tools.” The challenged decision holds that the regulation’s prohibition of “unsafe hand tools” applies only to tools which in themselves are “inherently dangerous” and not to tools which cause danger from the manner of their “use.” Although the administrative decision does not clearly explain what constitutes an “inherently dangerous” tool, ^[7] respondent’s brief suggests that the division would include within such a[*311] category tools which are either defectively manufactured or improperly maintained and which pose a danger of immediate injury. Thus, by way of example, the agency explains that in its view the regulation at issue is generally directed at dangers comparable to those imposed by a hammer with a partially broken handle or by an axe with a loose head.

While the ban on unsafe hand tools would, indeed, include the types of tools just mentioned, the regulation, in our thinking, would, as well, cover tools that create the danger of injury, whether immediate or cumulative (cf. Beveridge v. Industrial Acc. Com. (1959) 175 Cal.App.2d 592 [346 P.2d 545]), because of the manner of their use. As a number of our recent decisions in the products liability field stress, a defectively designed product which may cause injury only as a result of its use can be just as dangerous or “unsafe” as a defectively manufactured item. (See Cronin v. J.B.E. Olson Corp. (1972) 8 Cal.3d 121, 134 [104 Cal.Rptr. 433, 501 P.2d 1153].) The fact that there is no physical “imperfection” in the product itself does not guarantee the product’s safety. (See, e.g., Pike v. Frank G. Hough Co. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 465, 475-477 [85 Cal.Rptr. 629, 467 P.2d 229].)

The decision of the agency in the instant case provides no explanation for its narrow construction of the regulation. Nothing in the simple and clear language of section 3316 (“Unsafe hand tools shall not be used”) suggests that the regulation was intended to apply only to certain subclasses of “unsafe tools.” ^[8] Moreover, as explained below, the very[*312] comprehensiveness of the governing statutory provisions that establish the agency’s authority in this field negate the agency’s suggestion that “it would be an arbitrary and unreasonable extension of [the agency’s] authority” to prohibit a tool which is unsafe only as an incident of its use.

In establishing an employer’s duty to maintain a safe working environment, the relevant Labor Code provisions speak in the broadest possible terms. Thus, for example, at the time of the present agency decision, Labor Code section 6401 provided: “Every employer shall furnish and use safety devices and safeguards and shall adopt and use practices, means, methods, operations and processes which are reasonably adequate to render such employment and place of employment safe. Every employer shall do every other thing reasonably necessary to protect the life and safety of employees. ” (Italics added.) In like manner, section 6402 provided: “No employer shall require, or permit an employee to go or be in any employment or place of employment which is not safe.” (See also Lab. Code, § 6403.) ^[9]

Other provisions of the Labor Code specifically mandate the division to enforce the foregoing comprehensive provisions as well as all other “laws and lawful... orders . .. requiring .. . employment and place[s] of employment to be safe . . . .” (Lab. Code, § 6307; see also Lab. Code, §§ 142, 6308.) In order to accomplish such enforcement, section 6307 (former § 6312) bestows upon the agency all “power, jurisdiction and supervision over every employment and place of employment in this state, which is necessary adequately to enforce and administer” such laws. And section 6308 (former § 6500) establishes the division’s broad authority to “[djeclare and prescribe what safety devices, safeguards or other means or methods of protection are well adapted to render the employees of every employment . . . safe . . . [and to] [rjequire the performance of any other act which the protection of the life and safety of the employees in employments and places of employment reasonably demands.”

[*313] Finally, additional statutory provisions make clear that the terms of the legislation are to be given a liberal interpretation for the purpose of achieving a safe working environment. Thus, section 6306, subdivision (b) (former § 6311) provides that in interpreting the relevant provisions “ ‘[sjafety device’ and ‘safeguard’ shall be given a broad interpretation so as to include any practicable method of mitigating or preventing a specific danger,” and section 6306, subdivision (a) (former § 6310) declares that “ ‘safe’ [and] ‘safety’ ... as applied to an employment or a place of employment means such freedom from danger to the life [or] safety ... of employees as the nature of the employment reasonably permits.”

Given the comprehensive sweep of the legislation and the clear language of the regulation, we conclude that the agency erred in interpreting section 3316’s prohibition of “unsafe hand tools” to exclude tools which are harmful only as a result of the manner in which they must be used. We hold that any hand tool which causes injury, immediate or cumulative, when used in the manner in which it was intended to be used may constitute an “unsafe hand tool” within the meaning of the regulation. If the short-handled hoe is so designed that it can be used by the worker only in a stooped posture that is dangerous to his health it could be found to be an “unsafe hand tool.”

We must now determine the appropriate disposition of this case. Petitioners urge this court to prohibit all future use of the short-handled hoe, arguing that the present record establishes, as a matter of law, that the short-handled hoe is an “unsafe hand tool.” Petitioners rely primarily on the fact that the medical evidence produced at the public hearings, detailing the significant back injuries resulting from the use of the short-handled hoe, was largely uncontradicted; given the causal connection between the short-handled hoe and back disabilities, petitioners contend that such a hoe is “unsafe” as a matter of law.

The determination of whether a tool is impermissibly “unsafe,” however, involves more than a simple decision as to whether it causes some injuries; the heavy head of a traditional hammer, for example, may inevitably cause many sore thumbs but that in itself does not demonstrate that the hammer is unsafe. As noted above, - section 6306, subdivision (a) (former § 6310) defines “safe” and “safety” as “such freedom from danger ... as the nature of the employment reasonably permits” and section 6306, subdivision (b) (former § 6311) specifies that in determining the safeguards which an employer must adopt, the word[*314] “ ‘safeguard’ shall be given a broad interpretation so as to include any practicable method of mitigating or preventing a specific danger.” On the instant record, this court cannot determine, as a matter of law, whether under these statutory standards the short-handled hoe is safe or not; that determination is properly a judgment to be made in the first instance by the respondent agency, applying the proper legal standard.

In sum, we conclude that the respondent agency erred in determining that it would be an “unreasonable extension of its authority” to find that the short-handled hoe is an “unsafe hand tool” within the meaning of title 8, section 3316 of the California Administrative Code.

Let a peremptory writ of mandate issue, directing respondent division to set aside its decision and reconsider the matter in accordance with the views expressed in this opinion.

Wright, C. J., McComb, J., Mosk, J., Sullivan J., Clark, J., and Burke, J., * concurred.