Opinion ID: 1725466
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Vicarious Liability in the Present Case

Text: As to the factors weighing against vicarious liability, the pertinent conduct by Officer Noullet did not occur during regular working hours, or at his regular place of employment, or while he was wearing a uniform. Moreover, Officer Noullet was carrying his authorized weapon, the instrument that caused injury to one plaintiff, while consuming alcoholic beverages, which clearly violated Department rules. On the other hand, Officer Noullet, upon observing the nearby fight, was duty-bound under Department rules to take appropriate and necessary police action in an attempt to keep the peace. When he approached the scene of the encounter with the apparent intent to restore the peace, he announced that he was a police officer. The critical inquiry involves Officer Noullet's general conduct thereafter, considered along with his specific tortious acts. Roberts v. Benoit, 605 So.2d 1032, 1041 (La.1991). If Officer Noullet had, as he related in his rejected version of the events, simply ignored Miller's copying his license number and entered his car in order to retreat from the pursuing mob after Wade Noullet left the scene, the record arguably might support the trial judge's finding of vicarious liability. However, under the version of events implicitly accepted by the trier of fact, Officer Noullet did not ignore Miller, and the encounter with her militates heavily against a finding that he remained in the course and scope of employment when he assaulted her or when he fired into the crowd as he attempted to leave the scene after assaulting Miller. We therefore proceed to examine separately each of the tortious acts that occurred after Officer Noullet made arguably employment-related efforts to quell the disturbance and after Wade Noullet left the scene during a lull in the activities caused by his firing two sets of shots into the air.