Opinion ID: 1388423
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Imposition of Liability in This Case

Text: (5) Ordinarily, the determination whether an employee has acted within the scope of employment presents a question of fact; it becomes a question of law, however, when the facts are undisputed and no conflicting inferences are possible. ( Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 968.) In some cases, the relationship between an employee's work and wrongful conduct is so attenuated that a jury could not reasonably conclude that the act was within the scope of employment. (See, e.g., John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 1452; Rita M. v. Roman Catholic Archbishop (1986) 187 Cal. App.3d 1453, 1461 [232 Cal. Rptr. 685]; Alma W. v. Oakland Unified School Dist. (1981) 123 Cal. App.3d 133, 139-140 [176 Cal. Rptr. 287].) (6a) The City contends that such is the case here, asserting that even if all conflicts in the facts and the inferences to be drawn from those facts are resolved in plaintiff's favor, Sergeant Schroyer was acting outside the scope of employment when he raped plaintiff. [6] We do not agree. As we shall explain, Sergeant Schroyer's conduct was not so divorced from his work that, as a matter of law, it was outside the scope of employment. Rather, the question of whether Sergeant Schroyer acted within the scope of his employment was one properly left for the jury to decide. As we mentioned earlier, the test for determining whether an employee is acting outside the scope of employment is whether `in the context of the particular enterprise an employee's conduct is not so unusual or startling that it would seem unfair to include the loss resulting from it among other costs of the employer's business.' ( Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 968.) To assist us in that determination, we first consider whether the three policy objectives underlying respondeat superior would be achieved by applying the doctrine when a police officer on duty misuses his official authority and commits an act of rape. The lead opinion in John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d 438, concluded that because under the facts of that case application of respondeat superior would not further the doctrine's underlying rationale, it should not be invoked. That is not the case here. (7) The first of the three policy objectives supporting the application of respondeat superior is that imposing liability on the employer may prevent recurrence of the tortious conduct, because it creates a strong incentive for vigilance by those in a position `to guard substantially against the evil to be prevented.' ( Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, supra, 499 U.S. at p. ___ [113 L.Ed.2d at p. 17, 111 S.Ct. at p. 1041], quoting an earlier case.) In John R., the lead opinion concluded that this policy did not support the imposition of liability on the school district whose teacher committed sexual misconduct because the preventive measures that the employer could be forced to take would do more harm than good. To impose vicarious liability in that situation, the opinion explained, would be far too likely to deter districts from encouraging, or even authorizing, extracurricular and/or one-on-one contacts between teachers and students or to induce districts to impose such rigorous controls on activities of this nature that the educational process would be negatively affected. ( John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 451.) By contrast, imposition of liability here would not be likely to cause public entities to take preventive measures that would impair the effectiveness of law enforcement activities. As the lead opinion in John R. said: We doubt that police departments would deprive their officers of weapons or preclude them from enforcing the laws.... ( John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 452.) The imposition of liability on public entities whose law enforcement officers commit sexual assaults while on duty would encourage the employers to take preventive measures. [7] There is little or no risk that preventive measures would significantly interfere with the ability of police departments to enforce the law and to protect society from criminal acts. We therefore conclude that the first policy basis for respondeat superior โ encouraging the employer to take measures to prevent recurrence of the tortious conduct โ supports the jury's verdict against the City in this case. [8] We now consider the second reason underlying the application of respondeat superior: to give greater assurance of compensation to the victim. (8) The Legislature has recognized that the imposition of vicarious liability on a public employer is an appropriate method to ensure that victims of police misconduct are compensated. It has done so by declining to grant immunity to public entities when their police officers engage in violent conduct. Since the enactment of the California Tort Claims Act in 1963 (ง 810 et seq.), a governmental entity can be held vicariously liable when a police officer acting in the course and scope of employment uses excessive force or engages in assaultive conduct. ( City of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (1973) 33 Cal. App.3d 778, 782 [109 Cal. Rptr. 365]; Larson v. City of Oakland (1971) 17 Cal. App.3d 91, 98 [94 Cal. Rptr. 466]; Scruggs v. Haynes (1967) 252 Cal. App.2d 256, 268 [60 Cal. Rptr. 355]; Griffith v. City of Monrovia (1982) 134 Cal. App.3d Supp. 6 [184 Cal. Rptr. 709]; see also Jones v. City of Los Angeles (1963) 215 Cal. App.2d 155 [30 Cal. Rptr. 124].) The decisions cited have recognized, at least implicitly, that vicarious liability is an appropriate method to ensure that victims of police misconduct are compensated. [9] The only difference between those cases and the one now before us is that here the assault victim was raped rather than beaten. Surely the victim's need for compensation in this instance is as great as in other cases of violent tortious conduct by a police officer while on duty. Accordingly, the second policy objective of the doctrine of respondeat superior supports the jury's verdict imposing liability on the City. (9) Finally, the third policy consideration โ the appropriateness of spreading the risk of loss among the beneficiaries of the enterprise โ also favors the imposition of vicarious liability against the City. Here, too, John R. is instructive. The lead opinion recognized that school districts and the community at large benefit from the authority that teachers are given over students, but it concluded that the connection between that authority and a teacher's sexual abuse of a student was simply too attenuated to deem a sexual assault as falling within the range of risks allocable to a teacher's employer, and thus did not support vicarious liability in that context. ( John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 452.) The opinion contrasted the difference in authority, in both degree and kind, between a teacher and a police officer: [T]he authority of a police officer over a motorist โ bolstered most immediately by his uniform, badge and firearm, and only slightly less so by the prospect of criminal sanctions for disobedience โ plainly surpasses that of a teacher over a student. ( Ibid. ) At the outset, we observed that society has granted police officers extraordinary power and authority over its citizenry. An officer who detains an individual is acting as the official representative of the state, with all of its coercive power. As visible symbols of that power, an officer is given a distinctively marked car, a uniform, a badge, and a gun. As one court commented, police officers [exercise] the most awesome and dangerous power that a democratic state possesses with respect to its residents โ the power to use lawful force to arrest and detain them. ( Policeman's Benev. Ass'n of N.J. v. Washington Tp. (3d Cir.1988) 850 F.2d 133, 141.) Inherent in this formidable power is the potential for abuse. The cost resulting from misuse of that power should be borne by the community, because of the substantial benefits that the community derives from the lawful exercise of police power. As demonstrated, each of the three policy reasons supports the imposition of vicarious liability on the employer of a police officer who, while on duty, commits a sexual assault by misusing his official authority. (6b) The City nevertheless maintains that a police officer who commits rape while on duty can never be acting within the scope of his employment because the conduct is so unusual that to impose liability on the officer's employer in that instance would be unfair. The City relies on our decision in Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d 962. In that case, the defendant employer assigned an employee to drive a tractor through an orchard while pulling a disking attachment. The employee invited his nephew to ride with him. A branch knocked the nephew off the tractor and into the disking attachment. We held that the employee was acting within the scope of his employment, and therefore the employer could be held liable for the employee's negligent acts. We explained: A risk arises out of the employment when `in the context of the particular enterprise an employee's conduct is not so unusual or startling that it would seem unfair to include the loss resulting from it among other costs of the employer's business.... [T]he inquiry should be whether the risk was one that may fairly be regarded as typical of or broadly incidental to the enterprise undertaken by the employer. [Citation.]' ( Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 968, italics added.) Seizing on the italicized language, the City contends that the tortious act โ rape โ committed by Sergeant Schroyer is so unusual or startling that it cannot fairly be regarded as typical of or broadly incidental to the task of law enforcement. We disagree. As noted previously, society has granted police officers great power and control over criminal suspects. Officers may detain such persons at gunpoint, place them in handcuffs, remove them from their residences, order them into police cars and, in some circumstances, may even use deadly force. The law permits police officers to ensure their own safety by frisking persons they have detained, thereby subjecting detainees to a form of nonconsensual touching ordinarily deemed highly offensive in our society. ( Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1 [20 L.Ed.2d 889, 88 S.Ct. 1868].) In view of the considerable power and authority that police officers possess, it is neither startling nor unexpected that on occasion an officer will misuse that authority by engaging in assaultive conduct. The precise circumstances of the assault need not be anticipated, so long as the risk is one that is reasonably foreseeable. Sexual assaults by police officers are fortunately uncommon; nevertheless, the risk of such tortious conduct is broadly incidental to the enterprise of law enforcement, and thus liability for such acts may appropriately be imposed on the employing public entity. [10] In arguing against such liability, the City relies on Alma W. v. Oakland Unified School Dist., supra, 123 Cal. App.3d 133. There, the Court of Appeal upheld a trial court's ruling that a school district could not be held vicariously liable for the sexual molestation of an 11-year-old child by a school custodian on school grounds. As the court observed, There is no aspect of a janitor's duties that would make sexual assault anything other than highly unusual and very startling. ( Id. at p. 143.) By contrast, the very nature of law enforcement employment requires exertion of physical control over persons whom an officer has detained or arrested. The authority to use force when necessary in securing compliance with the law is fundamental to a police officer's duties in maintaining the public order. (Nat. Advisory Com. on Crim. Justice Stds. and Goals, Police (1973) p. 18.) That authority carries with it the risk of abuse. The danger that an officer will commit a sexual assault while on duty arises from the considerable authority and control inherent in the responsibilities of an officer in enforcing the law. Those responsibilities do not at all resemble the duties of a school custodian, as involved in Alma W., supra . [11] The City argues that when Sergeant Schroyer raped plaintiff, he was not acting in the course of his employment, but was primarily pursuing his own interests. (10) In Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., supra, 2 Cal.3d at page 960, we said that those cases that have considered recovery against an employer for injuries occurring within the scope and during the period of employment have established a general rule of liability with a few exceptions in instances where the employee has substantially deviated from his duties for personal purposes. To determine whether a particular set of facts falls into one of those few exceptions, it is necessary to examine the employees' conduct as a whole, not simply the tortious act itself. (See, e.g., Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co. (1946) 28 Cal.2d 652 [171 P.2d 5] [employee who threw a hammer at another employee after a dispute held to have acted within the scope of employment].) `The fact that an employee is not engaged in the ultimate object of his employment at the time of his wrongful act does not preclude attribution of liability to an employer.' ( John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 447, quoting Alma W. v. Oakland Unified School Dist., supra, 123 Cal. App.3d at p. 139.) As we said in Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d at page 970: [T]he proper inquiry is not `whether the wrongful act itself was authorized but whether it was committed in the course of a series of acts of the agent which were authorized by the principal.' (6c) Here, Sergeant Schroyer was acting within the scope of his employment when he detained plaintiff for erratic driving, when he ordered her to get out of her car and to perform a field sobriety test, and when he ordered her to get in his police car. Then, misusing his authority as a law enforcement officer, he drove her to her home, where he raped her. When plaintiff attempted to resist Sergeant Schroyer's criminal conduct, he continued to assert his authority by threatening to take her to jail. Viewing the transaction as a whole, it cannot be said that, as a matter of law, Sergeant Schroyer was acting outside the scope of his employment when he raped plaintiff. The City cites authorities from other jurisdictions in arguing that it should not be held vicariously liable when a police officer in its employ commits a sexual assault while on duty. Those decisions, however, do not support the City's position in this case. In one case cited by the City ( Lyon v. Carey (D.C. Cir.1976) 533 F.2d 649 [174 App.D.C. 422]), the court upheld a verdict finding an employer liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior. In that case, a delivery man brought a mattress to the plaintiff's home and, following a dispute over the manner of payment for the delivery, physically and sexually assaulted her. Concluding that the jury could have reasonably found that the delivery man's tortious conduct arose out of the delivery dispute, the federal appellate court upheld the jury's verdict imposing liability on the man's employer. ( Id. at p. 655.) Other decisions relied on by the City are distinguishable because they involved sexual assaults by private security guards. ( Heindel v. Bowery Savings Bank (1988) 138 A.D.2d 787 [525 N.Y.S.2d 428]; Webb by Harris v. Jewel Companies, Inc. (1985) 137 Ill. App.3d 1004 [485 N.E.2d 409]; Rabon v. Guardsmark, Inc. (4th Cir.1978) 571 F.2d 1277 [diversity case applying South Carolina law].) Because such persons do not act as official representatives of the state, any authority they have is different from, and far less than, that conferred upon an officer of the law. Still other cases relied on by the City are distinguishable because they involved sexual assaults by police officers who were not on duty when they committed the sexual assaults. ( Bates v. Doria (1986) 150 Ill. App.3d 1025 [502 N.E.2d 454]; Gambling v. Cornish (N.D.Ill. 1977) 426 F. Supp. 1153.) By contrast, the facts of Applewhite v. City of Baton Rouge (La. Ct. App. 1979) 380 So.2d 119 more closely resemble those of this case. There, the City of Baton Rouge was held vicariously liable when one of its police officers detained a teenage girl for vagrancy while she was walking with friends, ordered her into his police car to be taken to jail, then took her to another location where he forced her to engage in acts of sexual intercourse and oral copulation. In arriving at its conclusion, the court in Applewhite v. City of Baton Rouge, supra, 380 So.2d 119, explained why it was appropriate to impose vicarious liability on the employers of police officers who commit sexual assaults: We particularly note that [the officer] was on duty in uniform and armed, and was operating a police unit at the time of this incident. He was able to separate the plaintiff from her companions because of the force and authority of the position which he held. He took her into police custody and then committed the sexual abuses upon her in the vehicle provided for his use by his employer. [ถ] A police officer is a public servant given considerable public trust and authority.... [W]here excesses are committed by such officers, their employers are held to be responsible for their actions even though those actions may be somewhat removed from their usual duties. This is unquestionably the case because of the position of such officers in our society. ( Id. at p. 121; see also Turner v. State (La. Ct. App. 1986) 494 So.2d 1292 [state held vicariously liable when National Guard recruiter told four applicants to undress for physical exam, then molested them].) The City has also cited two federal decisions, City of Green Cove Springs v. Donaldson (5th Cir.1965) 348 F.2d 197, and Bates v. United States (8th Cir.1983) 701 F.2d 737, which concluded that under applicable state law the public entity involved could not be held vicariously liable for a rape committed by a police officer on duty. Neither decision is persuasive. Each failed to consider the significance of the extraordinary authority wielded by law enforcement officers, and in each instance the federal court was required to apply state law that is materially and substantively different from California law. The final case cited by the City, Desotelle v. Continental Cas. Co. (1986) 136 Wis.2d 13 [400 N.W.2d 524], does not assist the City, for it supports our conclusion that the City can be held liable in this case. In Desotelle, the court concluded that the question of whether an officer who commits a sexual assault is acting in the scope of his employment is one of fact, and the court upheld a determination by the trier of fact that an officer acted outside that scope when he committed a sexual assault. (400 N.W.2d at pp. 529-530.) Like the court in Desotelle, we reject the assertion that the appellate court should decide as a matter of law whether a law enforcement officer who commits a sexual assault is acting outside the scope of employment. The question of scope of employment is ordinarily one of fact for the jury to determine. For the reasons set forth above, we hold that when, as in this case, a police officer on duty misuses his official authority by raping a woman whom he has detained, the public entity that employs him can be held vicariously liable. This does not mean that, as a matter of law, the public employer is vicariously liable whenever an on-duty officer commits a sexual assault. Rather, this is a question of fact for the jury. In this case, plaintiff presented evidence that would support the conclusion that the rape arose from misuse of official authority. Sergeant Schroyer detained plaintiff when he was on duty, in uniform, and armed. He accomplished the detention by activating the red lights on his patrol car. Taking advantage of his authority and control as a law enforcement officer, he ordered plaintiff into his car and transported her to her home, where he threw her on a couch. When plaintiff screamed, Sergeant Schroyer again resorted to his authority and control as a police officer by threatening to take her to jail. Based on these facts, the jury could reasonably conclude that Sergeant Schroyer was acting in the course of his employment when he sexually assaulted plaintiff. [12]