Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-almd-2_13-cv-00008/USCOURTS-almd-2_13-cv-00008-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 790
Nature of Suit: Other Labor Litigation
Cause of Action: 38:4311 Uniformed Service Employment/Reemployment Rights Act

---

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE

MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, NORTHERN DIVISION

WILLIAM A. GUY, )

)

Plaintiff, )

) CIVIL ACTION NO.

v. ) 2:13cv8-MHT

) (WO) 

ALABAMA POWER COMPANY, )

)

Defendant. )

OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiff William A. Guy brought this lawsuit against

defendant Alabama Power Company, charging federal claims

under (1) the Uniformed Services Employment and

Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), 38 U.S.C. §§ 4301-4333,

and asserting two Alabama state claims based on (2) the

tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress and

(3) the tort of negligent or wanton hiring, training, and

supervision. Jurisdiction is proper under 28 U.S.C.

§§ 1331 (federal question) and 1367 (supplemental

jurisdiction). 

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This matter is now before the court on Alabama Power’s

motion to dismiss. Based on the parties’ filings and

representations made on the record on June 19, 2013, this

court allowed Guy’s USERRA claims to go forward and

dismissed his intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress

claim. The court reserved ruling on his claim of

negligent or wanton hiring, training, and supervision.

For the reasons set forth below, the court will now grant

Alabama Power’s motion to dismiss as to this claim as

well. 

I.

In considering a defendant’s motion to dismiss, the

court accepts the plaintiff’s allegations as true, Hishon

v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984), and construes

the complaint in the plaintiff’s favor, Duke v. Cleland,

5 F.3d 1399, 1402 (11th Cir. 1993). “The issue is not

whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether

the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the

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claims.” Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236 (1974). To

survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint need not contain

“detailed factual allegations,” Bell Atl. Corp. v.

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 545 (2007), “only enough facts to

state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”

Id. at 574.

II.

Guy is a member of the Alabama National Guard, which

is a component of the United States Army and the United

States National Guard. Since 2003, he was also working

for Alabama Power, first as a salesman, and then, starting

in 2008, as Division Appliance Sales Manager. In May

2012, he informed his supervisor that his National Guard

unit was being deployed to Afghanistan in April 2013. Guy

alleges that his informing his employer of this deployment

resulted in a series of adverse actions against him that

ultimately culminated in his termination. In his claim of

negligent or wanton hiring, training, and supervision, he

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specifically alleges that Alabama Power knew that its

employees, including managers and supervisors, were

engaging in discrimination based on military service and

“failed to halt said discrimination; failed to discipline

or terminate the offending employee[s]; retained said

offending employee[s] in their managerial capacity; and

tacitly encouraged additional discrimination by said

employee[s].” Compl. (Doc. No. 1) at 11-12. 

III. 

The key points of contention in the parties’ filings

on Guy’s claim of negligent or wanton hiring, training,

and supervision are, first, what Alabama law requires in

order to establish this claim and, second, whether Guy’s

allegations meet those requirements.

It appears that Alabama courts have, in general,

recognized two means of holding employers liable for their

employees’ wrongdoing. There is the obvious indirect or

vicarious liability through the doctrines of agency or

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respondeat superior by which employers are held liable for

their employees’ wrongdoing if certain conditions are met,

and then there is direct liability by which employers are

held liable for their own conduct in negligently or

wantonly hiring, training, or supervising their employees.

Stevenson v. Precision Standard, Inc., 762 So. 2d 820

(Ala. 1999); Big B, Inc. v. Cottingham, 634 So.2d 999

(Ala. 1993); Potts v. BE & K Const. Co., 604 So. 2d 398

(Ala. 1992); see also Kurtts v. Chiropractic Strategies

Group, Inc., 481 F. App'x 462, 469 (11th Cir. 2012).

Here, Guy asserts the latter.

Alabama Power contends that a claim of negligent or

wanton hiring, training, and supervision must be based on

an Alabama common-law tort. Guy responds that Alabama

Power reads Alabama law too narrowly; instead, he contends

that the law allows this sort of claim to go forward based

simply on “wrongful conduct.” Accordingly, he contends

that he finds a basis for his claim in an Alabama statute

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that incorporates and applies the federal USERRA to the

members of the Alabama National Guard. 

To support his interpretation, Guy leans heavily on

the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision in Jones Exp. Inc. v.

Jackson, 86 So.3d 298, 304 (Ala. 2010). He contends that,

in that case, the court implies that a claim of negligent

hiring, supervision, and training may be based on an

employee’s wrong other than one grounded in an Alabama

common-law tort. The court in that case reasoned that,

"implicit in the tort of negligent hiring, retention,

training, and supervision is the concept that, as a

consequence of the employer's incompetence, the employee

committed some sort of act, wrongdoing, or tort that

caused the plaintiff's injury." Id. at 305 (emphasis

deleted).

First of all, it is clear that the employee’s

wrongdoing must be based on state, and not federal, law.

Otherwise, the tort of negligent or wanton hiring,

training, and supervision could be a corridor through

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which federal laws prohibiting various types of conduct by

employees could be incorporated into state law as a

privately redressable requirement on employers to stop

their employees from engaging in such conduct.

“[M]ak[ing] an educated guess of how the Alabama courts,

and, in particular, the Alabama Supreme Court,” would

answer this question, Palmer v. Infosys Technologies Ltd.

Inc., 888 F. Supp. 2d 1248, 1252 (M.D. Ala. 2012)

(Thompson, J.), this court confidently doubts that the

Jones court intended such potentially indiscriminate and

broad incorporation of federal law into state law. 

The more difficult question is whether the Jones court

intended to restrict the tort of negligent or wanton

hiring, training, and supervision to those instances in

which the employee’s wrongdoing is based on Alabama common

law, or, to put it another way, the tort does not include

those instances where the wrongful conduct is based on

only an Alabama statute. In determining what the Jones

court intended, this court believes it prudent to heed

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that it is generally undesirable, where holdings of the

Alabama Appellate Courts are not at issue, to dissect the

sentences in the opinions of those courts as though they

were the Alabama Code. Cf. St. Mary's Honor Ctr. v.

Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 515 (1993) (“we think it generally

undesirable, where holdings of the Court are not at issue,

to dissect the sentences of the United States Reports as

though they were the United States Code”). This caution

is particularly applicable here because the issue before

the Jones court was not whether the underlying employee

wrongdoing for the tort of negligent or wanton hiring,

training, and supervision was restricted to a common-law

tort but rather whether a jury’s finding that a truck

driver was not negligent was inconsistent with its finding

that the company negligently hired the truck driver and,

if so, whether a new trial was the proper remedy. Because

the above language from Jones, upon which Guy so heavily

relies, was not its holding, that language should not be

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dissected as such. Instead, this court should look

elsewhere as well so as to get the full picture.

“[I]n Big B, Inc. v. Cottingham, 634 So.2d 999

(Ala.1993), th[e Alabama Supreme] Court recognized a cause

of action for negligent or wanton supervision and

training.” Stevenson v. Precision Standard, Inc., 762 So.

2d 820, 824 (Ala. 1999). “That cause of action ... was

predicated on the underlying tortious conduct of an

employee, an assistant manager.” Id.; see also Stevenson,

supra (holding that a jury verdict against an employer

based on negligent training and supervision of a

supervisor who allegedly sexually harassed a fellow

employee could not stand where the jury also exonerated

the supervisor). Then, relying on Big B and Stevenson,

this federal court stated that, “Under Alabama law, the

finding of underlying tortious conduct is a precondition

to invoking successfully liability for the negligent or

wanton training and supervision of an employee.” Smith v.

Boyd Bros. Transp., Inc., 406 F. Supp. 2d 1238, 1248 (M.D.

Ala. 2005) (Thompson, J.). And, to complete the circle,

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the Jones court cited this court’s Smith opinion as one of

several “additional authorities” in support of the Jones

quote relied upon by Guy, 86 So3d at 305; indeed, without

any effort to distinguish and in leading up to the

language relied upon by Guy, the Jones court actually

quoted the above language from Smith. 86 So.3d at 304.

If this case-law history were not enough to support

the conclusion that the tort of negligent or wanton

hiring, training, and supervision by an employer is

restricted to an underlying common-law tort or just a tort

by the employee, it appears that all Alabama federal

courts that have considered the issue have consistently

interpreted state law as requiring that the employee’s

wrongdoing be based on “a common-law, Alabama tort ...,

[and] not on a federal cause of action.” Short v. Mando

Am. Corp., 805 F. Supp. 2d 1246, 1277 (M.D. Ala. 2011)

(Fuller, J.) (quotations and citations omitted); see also,

e.g., Williams v. Daiichi Sankyo, Inc., 2012 WL 3627765,

at *3 (N.D. Ala. Aug. 21, 2012) (Bowdre, J.) (“The

plaintiff must allege underlying wrongful conduct that is

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an Alabama common law tort to support a claim of wanton

supervision.”); Evans v. Mobile Infirmary Med. Ctr., 2005

WL 1840235, at *17 (S.D. Ala. Aug. 2, 2005) (Hand, J.)

("[T]he Alabama Supreme Court has held that a plaintiff is

required to prove an underlying common-law tort in order

to prevail in a claim for negligent supervision, training

or retention."). Moreover, the Eleventh Circuit Court of

Appeals, in interpreting Jones, read that case as

supportive of the idea that this claim can be sustained

only where there has been an underlying state tort. See

Kurtts v. Chiropractic Strategies Group, Inc., 481 F.

App'x 462, 469 (11th Cir. 2012) (citing Jones to explain

that, in cases where there has been no evidence that a

tort was committed, "the Alabama Supreme Court has

explained that an employer may not be held directly liable

on a theory of negligent supervision or training because

no [underlying] tort occurred."). While neither Kurtts

nor any Alabama case expressly forecloses the possibility

that the claim of negligent or wanton hiring, training,

and supervision could be based on some employee wrongdoing

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other than that prohibited by a common-law tort, the

conventional wisdom of the federal courts appears to be

that a state tort must underlie this type of claim.

In any event, even if Guy could convince this court

that a statutory wrong could form the basis for this claim,

this claim should still be dismissed. The Alabama statute

that Guy cites as a basis for this claim mandates that,

under certain circumstances, the USERRA and the Solders’

and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act apply to members of the

Alabama National Guard, including when they are called to

active duty by the Governor rather than the President. The

full text of the statute reads: 

“Whenever any active member of the

Alabama National Guard, in time of war,

armed conflict, or emergency proclaimed

by the Governor or by the President of

the United States, shall be called or

ordered to state active duty for a period

of 30 consecutive days or more or

federally funded duty for other than

training, the provisions of the SSCRA and

the Uniformed Services Employment and

Reemployment Rights Act shall apply.” 

1975 Ala. Code § 31-12-2. 

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However, while the statute provides members of the

Alabama National Guard like Guy the protections outlined in

USERRA, nowhere does it suggest that it could form the

basis of a negligence or wantonness claim of the sort that

Guy now asserts. As the statute does not provide for this

sort of action, the court would overreach to conclude today

that it can form the basis of a claim of common-law

negligent and wanton hiring, training, and supervision. 

The court finds an analogy in a case that Guy himself

cites in his brief: Johnson v. Brunswick Riverview Club,

Inc., 39 So.3d 132 (Ala. 2009). In that case, Johnson

asserted a claim for negligent hiring, training, and

supervision against a bowling alley after it served her son

alcoholic drinks and he was killed in his automobile

shortly after he drove away, intoxicated. The bowling

alley argued that her claim was “in reality a claim

alleging the negligent dispensing of alcohol, a claim

Alabama does not recognize.” Id. at 139. Johnson

countered that her claim was based on the bowling alley’s

“hiring/training and/or supervising its employees in

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carrying out duties which are required by statute ... which

... [the] employees ignored in the present case.” Id.

(quotations and citations omitted). The court sided with

the bowling alley, reasoning that Johnson’s claim “s[ought]

a remedy directly related to the alleged unlawful

dispensing of alcohol, and ... attempts to do so outside

the Dram Shop Act,” which is the exclusive remedy for the

unlawful dispensing of alcohol. Id. at 140. 

Here, like in Johnson, Guy seeks to engraft a

negligence cause of action onto a statute that already

includes its own set of remedies and means of obtaining

them and a statute, in the absence of which, no arguably

comparable common-law claim would exist. The court is not

persuaded that he may do so. The USERRA and the Alabama

law applying it to Alabama National Guard members address,

to the extent their drafters wished, how employers must

conduct themselves with regard to members of the Alabama

National Guard. 

Guy's additional examples of cases where a claim of

negligent or wanton hiring, training, and supervision was

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purportedly based on statutory violations are inapposite.

For instance, Guy cites Ex parte Ridgeview Health Care

Center, Inc., 786 So.2d 1112 (Ala. 2000), in support of his

argument that this type of claim can be based on violation

of a statute. However, this case merely cited statutes,

the Alabama Medical Liability Acts, that placed limits on

allowable discovery in the case; there is nothing in the

Alabama Supreme Court’s opinion to indicate that the

statutes themselves were the basis for the claim of

negligent or wanton hiring, training, and supervision. 

In sum, even if Jones did create an opening for a claim

against employers for the negligent or wanton hiring,

training, and supervision of their employees based on their

employees’ wrongdoings other than those prohibited by

common-law torts, this court cannot conclude that the

statute that Guy cites would be such a basis. 

Moreover, because there is no allegation that Alabama

Power engaged in negligent hiring, the claim should also be

dismissed to the extent that it is based on negligent

hiring. 

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* * *

Accordingly, for the above reasons, it is ORDERED that

defendant Alabama Power Company’s motion to dismiss (doc.

no. 7) is granted as to plaintiff William A. Guy’s claim of

negligent or wanton hiring, training, and supervision and

said claim is dismissed. This motion may now be

terminated.

DONE, this the 29th day of July, 2013.

 /s/ Myron H. Thompson 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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