Opinion ID: 1673493
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Analysis Focusing Upon the Nature of the Officer's Actions

Text: Upon due consideration, we decline to strictly analyze this issue according to the nature of the officer's actions, as this approach does not closely comport with existing Tennessee law. When analyzed in terms of current Tennessee law and practice, the nature-of-the-act analysis has three primary shortcomings. First, this type of analysis fails to take into account the fact that many of the actions taken by officers in Tennessee to vindicate public rights may also be lawfully taken by private citizens to serve other interests. For example, police officers in Tennessee do not possess the exclusive authority to make arrests, as private citizens possess this power in many of the same circumstances as officers on official duty. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 40-7-109 (1997) (listing grounds permitting arrest by private citizens). In addition, private citizens employed as security guards in Tennessee are authorized by statute to undertake many actions for private interests that also appear to be consistent with a general vindication of public rights. For example, private security guards in this state are authorized to protect persons and/or property from criminal activities, including, but not limited to: (A) Prevention and/or detection of intrusion, unauthorized entry, larceny, vandalism, abuse, fire or trespass on private property; (B) Prevention, observation or detection of any unauthorized activity on private property; (C) Enforce rules, regulations or local or state laws on private property; (D) Control, regulation or direction of the flow or movements of the public, whether by vehicle or otherwise on private property; or (E) Street patrol service; See Tenn.Code Ann. § 62-35-102(16) (1997) (emphasis added). As this statute makes clear, private security guards are authorized to enforce local and state laws and to protect persons and property against general criminal activities, irrespective of whether the guard is a private citizen or an off-duty officer. Because many of these statutorily authorized activities could legitimately be viewed either as serving the interests of the private employer or as vindicating public rights, analysis focusing on the nature of the act may not provide a meaningful basis upon which to impose vicarious liability on the private employer. Second, just as the majority approach that looks to the official nature of the officer's actions ignores that private citizens in Tennessee can perform many of the same actions as police officers, an approach that looks to the private nature of the officer's actions ignores that police officers in Tennessee still possess the full panoply of official police power, even when they are off duty. [8] Indeed, this benefit is one of the considerable advantages of employing off-duty officers as private security guards, and we are unwilling to restrict the powers of an off-duty officer solely to accommodate a test that examines the nature of the acts committed. For the same reasons that we reject a test denying vicarious liability when the off-duty officer performs official actions, we must necessarily reject a rule that holds private employers liable in situations solely because the acts committed by the off-duty officer were private in nature. Third, while most states decline to impose vicarious liability on private employers because police officers have a continuous duty to keep the peace and enforce the law, we can find no corresponding statute or rule of law in this state that places a mandatory duty upon police officers to keep the peace when off duty. To the contrary, when officers are off duty, our statutes generally treat the officer as an ordinary private citizen and not as an agent or employee of the municipal police department under a general duty to keep the peace. See, e.g., Tenn.Code Ann. § 38-8-351 (1997) (allowing officers to participate in political activities when off-duty and acting as a private citizen, but not when the officer is on duty or acting in such officer's official capacity); Tenn. Code Ann. § 38-8-303 (1997) (making distinction between the performance of the officer's official duties and the officer's off-duty [private] employment for purposes of disclosure in official investigations). Consequently, to the extent that a nature-of-the-act analysis focuses upon some continuous duty of police officers to keep the peace, that analysis is impractical in this state. Of course, to say that officers do not continuously function in an official capacity is not to say that off-duty officers are prevented from assuming a duty to remedy a breach of the peace, or that officers are incapable of being summoned to official duty by the municipality. Cf. Knoxville City Code § 19-29. Nevertheless, it is clear that officers are not under a general duty to enforce the law while off duty, cf. Ezell v. Cockrell, 902 S.W.2d 394, 403 (Tenn.1995) (stating that an officer's ability to arrest at any time does not give rise to a duty to do so, but only delineate[s] the general authority and responsibility of police officers), and a blanket rule declaring that police officers are under a never-ending duty to keep the peace is contrary to existing Tennessee law. We therefore decline to use this rationale in determining the scope of private employer liability. For these reasons, we conclude that a test examining the nature of the officer's actions to resolve the question of employer liability is probably unworkable within the current framework of Tennessee law. No doubt because of the practical difficulty in determining the proper nature of the actions committed by a security guard, this test has resulted in over-insulating private employers who would otherwise be subject to liability if the security guard were not also employed by a municipal police department. While a few states in minority jurisdictions have held employers liable under this approach, the vast majority of jurisdictions using this approach have held that private employers are not liable. We are unwilling to provide such practical immunity for private employers based only upon negligible distinctions concerning the nature of the officer's conduct.