Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-akd-3_14-cv-00161/USCOURTS-akd-3_14-cv-00161-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 362
Nature of Suit: Medical Malpractice
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question: Medical Malpractice

---

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

DISTRICT OF ALASKA

JACLYN CABALES and JONATHAN )

CABALES, )

)

Plaintiffs, ) 3:14-cv-00161-JWS

)

vs. ) ORDER AND OPINION

)

ALBERT E. MORGAN, D.C., ARCTIC )

CHIROPRACTIC BETHEL, LLC, and )

CHRISTOPHER F. TWIFORD, D.C., ) [Re: Motion at docket 67]

)

Defendants, )

)

vs. )

)

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )

)

Third-Party Defendant. )

)

I. MOTION PRESENTED

At docket 66, the court granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of

Defendant Christopher Twiford (“Twiford”). Plaintiffs Jaclyn Cabales (“Cabales”) and

Jonathan Cabales (collectively “Plaintiffs”) filed a motion for reconsideration at docket

67, arguing that the court erred in granting the motion. At docket 68, the court denied

the motion for reconsideration as to Plaintiffs’ assertion that a delay in getting Cabales

to the hospital supports a claim against Twiford, but it requested a response from

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Twiford as to the negligent hiring claim and the court’s ruling in favor of Twiford on that

claim.

II. BACKGROUND

When granting Twiford’s motion for summary judgment as to Plaintiffs’ negligent

hiring claim, the court determined that assuming Twiford even had a duty, which it did

not definitively decide, the extent of any such duty was only that he hire a competent

and non-dangerous employee. The court concluded that there was no evidence that

Morgan was incompetent or dangerous.1 

Plaintiffs filed the motion for reconsideration. In their motion, they emphasized

that Twiford knew Morgan used a handkerchief to perform manipulations and that their

expert’s opinion was that such a practice is unusual and dangerous. In response to

that argument, the court concluded at docket 68 that Plaintiffs’ expert’s opinion may

well create a disputed issue of fact regarding the propriety of “handkerchief

manipulations.” However, the court also noted at docket 68 that even assuming the

court were to conclude that there is a factual dispute about the safety of “handkerchief

manipulations” which would foreclose summary judgment, that would not end the

inquiry because the court would nonetheless have to then decide two issues the court

identified but found unnecessary to reach in its original order: (1) whether or not

Plaintiffs actually pled a negligent hiring claim against Twiford; and (2) whether or not

Twiford individually may be held responsible for the engagement of Morgan by Arctic

1Doc. 66 pp. 5-8.

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Chiropractic. Thus, the court directed Twiford to file a response that addressed all the

remaining issues. Plaintiffs were allowed to reply. 

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under the law of the case doctrine, a court is generally precluded from

reconsidering an issue that has already been decided by the same court or a higher

court in the same case.2 However, as long as a district court retains jurisdiction over a

case, it has inherent power to reconsider and modify an interlocutory order for sufficient

cause.3 That inherent power is not unfettered: “the court may reconsider previously

decided questions in cases in which there has been an intervening change of

controlling authority, new evidence has surfaced, or the previous disposition was clearly

erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.”4

IV. DISCUSSION

While Twiford argues that Plaintiffs’ complaint did not allege a negligent hiring

claim, he nonetheless concedes that Plaintiffs’ initial disclosures put him on notice as to

their intent to raise such a claim. He acknowledges that he consented to litigate the

issue despite Plaintiffs’ failure to make sure the complaint was amended accordingly. 

Twiford argues, however, that reconsideration is not appropriate because

Plaintiffs’ expert’s opinion that handkerchief manipulations are unusual and dangerous

does not create an issue of fact precluding summary judgment. The basis for his

2Thomas v. Bible, 983 F.2d 152, 154 (9th Cir. 1993).

3City of Los Angeles v. Santa Monica, 254 F.3d 882, 885 (9th Cir. 2001).

4Leslie Salt Co. v. United States, 55 F.3d 1388, 1393 (9th Cir. 1995); see also Sch. Dist.

No. 1J, Multnomah County v. AcandS, Inc., 5 F.3d 1255, 1263 (9th Cir. 1993).

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argument is that the expert and his opinion have not been properly qualified and should

be excluded. The court agrees with Plaintiffs’ position that such an argument should

not be made in a reconsideration response and that the expert’s opinion at this stage

creates an issue of fact regarding the safety of handkerchief manipulations. However,

even with that disputed fact, the court concludes that summary judgment in favor of

Twiford is nonetheless warranted because Twiford cannot be held individually liable for

the tort of negligent hiring and thus such a disputed fact is immaterial.

Alaska case law recognizes a cause of action for negligent hiring against an

employer in certain situations. It has noted “that an employer is liable to a third person

for injuries inflicted upon him by an employee who has been retained in employment

after the employer knows, or ought to know, that because of his incompetency or

vicious propensities he is likely to assault persons during the course of his

employment.”5 Negligent hiring is usually presented as a claim of direct negligence by

the hiring entity and not the individual agent conducting the hiring process and making

the hiring decision. Indeed, the dearth of case law involving a claim for negligent hiring

against an employer’s agent supports such a conclusion. 

There is no Alaska case that specifically addresses the question of whether an

individual administrative or supervisory employee may be individually liable for the tort

of negligent hiring. Plaintiff cites to Ayulick v. Red Oaks Assisted Living, Inc.,

6

 for the

proposition that an individual agent doing the hiring on the employing entity’s behalf

5Svacke v. Shelley, 359 P.2d 127, 130 (Alaska 1961) (emphasis omitted).

6201 P.3d 1183 (Alaska 2009).

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cannot be individually liable for the tort of negligent hiring. The holding in Ayulick is not

that broad. There, the Supreme Court of Alaska merely upheld the trial court’s directed

judgment in favor of the individual who had recommended the dangerous individual for

employment. The court concluded that the individual had discharged any duty she

might have had. It did not specifically consider whether she, as the person

recommending that individual for employment, had a duty in relation to the plaintiffs in

the first place. 

Whether a duty exists is a matter of law.

7

 The court first looks to statutes,

regulations, contracts, or other typical sources to determine whether an actionable duty

exists.8 If there is no duty imposed, the court determines whether the factual scenario

“falls in the class of cases controlled by existing precedent.”9

 Then, if no existing case

law is similar, the court weighs certain public policy “factors that support and oppose the

imposition of liability.” Those factors are:

The foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the

plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the

defendant's conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the

defendant's conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the

burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing

a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability,

cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.10

7Dore v. City of Fairbanks, 31 P.3d 788 (Alaska 2001).

8McGrew v. State Dep’t of Health & Soc. Servs., 106 P.3d 319, 322 (Alaska 2005).

9Dore, 31 P.3d at 793.

10 Wiersum v. Harder, 316 P.3d 557, 566 n. 39 (Alaska 2013) (citing D.S.W. v.

Fairbanks North Star Borough Sch. Dist., 628 P.2d 554, 555 (Alaska 1981)).

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Here, there is no statutory or similar source imposing a legal duty on Twiford, as

Arctic Chiropractic’s hiring agent, to protect Plaintiffs from harm caused by another

employee whom Twiford hired to work for Arctic Chiropractic. Case law, however,

assists with the analysis. Alaska courts have “previously relied upon the Restatement

(Second) of Torts to assist [the] determination of whether a defendant has a duty to

protect a victim from third party harm.”11 Under the Restatement, a person generally

has no duty to protect a victim from third party harm except when there is a special

relationship between the defendant and the third party or between the defendant and

the victim.

12

 Here, there is no special relationship between Twiford and Morgan. 

Twiford was merely an employee of Arctic Chiropractic; he was not Morgan’s employer. 

Also, there is no special relationship between Twiford and Plaintiffs. While Twiford was

Cabales’ chiropractor at Arctic Chiropractic in the past, the type of special relationships

of concern under the Restatement are more specific. The special relationships

identified in the Restatement are between common carriers and their passengers,

innkeepers and their guests, landowners and their invitees, “and a victim and a

defendant who takes custody of the victim under circumstances which deprive the

victim of his normal opportunities for protection.”13 

The court finds a ruling by the Supreme Court of California in C.A. v. William S.

Hart Union High School District14

persuasive here. There, the court held that school

11Dore, 31 P.3d at 793.

12

Id. at 793 (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314 (1965)).

13

Id. at 793-94 (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 315 cmt. c. & 314A & 320)).

14270 P.3d 699 (Cal. 2012).

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personnel owed a duty of care when hiring and supervising employees to protect

students from foreseeable injury at the hands of those employees. However, the

potential legal responsibility of school district administrators for their hiring decisions

stemmed from the “special relationship” they had with students under their custody and

supervision.15 It concluded that “[a]bsent a special relationship, there can be no

individual liability to third parties for negligent hiring . . . .”16

Plaintiffs cite Hill v. Beverly Enterprises-Mississippi, Inc.

17

 and Bloxom v. City of

Shreveport18 in support of their argument that an individual who makes a hiring decision

within a company can be individually liable for that negligent decision. Those cases are

distinguishable. In Hill, the court held that the administrator of a nursing home was

potentially individually liable for negligent hiring and supervision, but the duty stemmed

from state cases and statutes specifically related to nursing home administrators. In

Bloxom, the defendant was a corporate officer of a taxi cab company and made the

decision to hire a known registered sex offender to drive taxis for the company. The

court acknowledged that a “common carrier is held not simply to a reasonable degree of

care, but to the highest degree of care” and determined that given this imposition of a

high degree of care, “the officer of such a company has an obvious duty to the public to

properly vet job applicants prior to their employment.”19

 There is no similar special

15

Id. at 709.

16

Id.

17305 F. Supp. 2d 644 (S.D. Miss. 2003).

18103 So.3d 383 (La. Ct. App. 2012).

19

Id. at 391.

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relationship here which would justify making Twiford himself liable for the hiring decision

he made as an agent of Arctic Chiropractic. Ultimately, Arctic Chiropractor was

Morgan’s employer, not Twiford. Thus, liability for any negligent hiring falls on Arctic

Chiropractic. 

V. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs’ motion at docket 67 is DENIED.

DATED at Anchorage, Alaska, this 7th day of August 2015.

 /s/ 

JOHN W. SEDWICK

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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