Opinion ID: 1059551
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Jury Instructions on Negligent Hiring

Text: At the conclusion of the evidence, Majorana proffered two instructions concerning the failure of Crown to present evidence of any background investigation of Bains at the time he was first employed. The first instruction read: Under the circumstances of this case, by the failure of Crown to produce as a witness their current employee Vatos  who was the manager of Crown in Warrenton on 3/11/96  where the Bains station records were supposed to be maintained (job application etc.), to explain the absence of that record (after a request to produce has been made by Laura Majorana) you may presume that the witness would have produced testimony adverse to Crown as to the job application, or other matters. The second instruction read: Under the circumstances of this case, by the failure of Crown to produce any written job application of their former employee Bains, you may presume that it was never provided by Bains, or if provided it contained adverse information about Bains, (no references). The trial court refused both of these instructions. Crown proffered two instructions on negligent hiring. The first stated the elements of that cause of action. The second addressed the issue of imputed knowledge and stated that Majorana had the burden to show [t]hat the investigation Crown should have conducted is one that Crown is obligated to do in the exercise of reasonable care considering both Crown's business and Bains' position as a gas station attendant. This instruction further stated that Majorana must show What such investigation would have put Crown on notice that its hiring of Mr. Bains might reasonably lead to an assault on the plaintiff. The trial court granted both these instructions. The jury, which was given interrogatories, returned its verdict for Crown, and Crown was dismissed from the case. The jury then considered damages against Bains and awarded Majorana $70,140 in compensatory damages and $60,000 in punitive damages. In her third assignment of error, Majorana asserts that [t]he trial court improperly instructed the jury on the issue of negligent hire. In her fourth assignment of error, Majorana asserts, in part, that [t]he trial court erred in denying plaintiffs motion to reconsider the court's decisions on the issue[ of ... the legal standard for proving negligent hire. The motion for reconsideration referenced by this latter assignment of error was essentially a motion to set aside the jury's verdict. These assignments of error are without merit. Majorana, relying on Southeast Apartments Management v. Jackman, 257 Va. 256, 513 S.E.2d 395 (1999), asserts that an employer is required to conduct a reasonable background investigation of a prospective employee and that the failure to do so establishes the employer's liability. Because Crown failed to produce evidence of what background investigation, if any, it undertook prior to hiring Bains, Majorana contends that she was entitled to have the jury instructed that the failure to produce such evidence raised a presumption that Crown had either failed to investigate Bains' background or had done so and discovered adverse information. Majorana misconstrues the holding in Southeast Apartments. In that case, we held that an employer's liability for negligent hiring is predicated on the negligence ... in placing a person with known propensities, or propensities which should have been discovered by reasonable investigation, in an employment position in which, because of the circumstances of the employment, it should have been foreseeable that the hired individual posed a threat of injury to others. 257 Va. at 260, 513 S.E.2d at 397. We did not thereby hold that the absence of proof by the employer of a reasonable investigation of the employee raises a presumption that either no investigation was conducted or that if conducted, it would have revealed that the employee posed a threat of injury to others. To the contrary, it is a paradigm of civil trials that the burden of proof falls upon the plaintiff. In the case of a claim of negligent hiring, proof of the failure to investigate a potential employee's background is not sufficient to establish the employer's liability. Rather, the plaintiff must show that an employee's propensity to cause injury to others was either known or should have been discovered by reasonable investigation. This was the substance of the instructions proffered by Crown and given by the trial court. The record shows that Majorana produced no evidence of what form of reasonable investigation of Bains' background Crown should have undertaken. Nor does any evidence in the record support the proposition that a reasonable investigation would have revealed that Rains had a propensity to commit assaults and, thus, posed a threat to others in his employment with Crown. Accordingly, we hold that Majorana's instructions were not correct statements of law and were properly refused by the trial court. Similarly, the trial court did not err in denying Majorana's motion to set aside the jury verdict on the ground that it had not properly instructed the jury on this issue.