Opinion ID: 3134224
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: 2d 613, 617 (1978) (misconduct involving personal gain at public

Text: expense cannot be said to benefit the public). While the commissioners' and corporation counsel's public employment provided the opportunity for their misconduct, by no stretch of the imagination could their actions be deemed an extension of their legitimate functions as elected officials. Therefore, their conduct neither arose out of nor was incidental to the performance of their duties and, thus, was not within the scope of their employment. See Bowling v. Brown, 57 Md. App. 248, 258, 469 A.2d 896, 901 (1984); Valerius v. City of Newark, 84 N.J. 591, 596, 423 A.2d 988, 990-91 (1980) (criminal conviction for misuse of office constitutes a perversion and prostitution of duties and establishes that the acts were not within scope of employment); Powers v. Union City Board of Education, 124 N.J. Super. 590, 596, 308 A.2d 71, 75 (1973) (criminal misconduct originating out of performance of duties was not act occurring within the scope of those duties). In this case, the record clearly reveals that the commissioners and corporation counsel stepped aside from their duties as officers of the City of Danville and acted for the sole, unlawful, independent, and personal purpose of promoting their own interests. As a matter of law, their actions were outside the scope of their employment such that the city owed no statutory duty to defend or indemnify them in the criminal action.