Opinion ID: 1388423
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Allocation of the risk

Text: The modern justification for vicarious liability is `a deliberate allocation of a risk.' ( John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d 438, 450, quoting Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., supra, 2 Cal.3d 956, 959-960.) The John R. lead opinion acknowledged that society benefits from the authority placed in teachers and noted that, [I]t can be argued that the consequences of an abuse of that authority should be shared on an equally broad basis. (48 Cal.3d at p. 452.) The lead opinion, however, concluded this factor weighed against vicarious liability because the connection between the authority conferred on teachers and the abuse of that authority by engaging in sexual misconduct is too attenuated to allocate the risk to the employer. That conclusion equally weighs against liability in this case. Rather than relying on the result in John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d 438, or even the lead opinion's application of this factor, the present majority relies heavily on a statement in the lead opinion that the authority of a police officer plainly surpasses that of a teacher over a student. ( Id., at p. 452.) This statement is unpersuasive: (i) It was a passing observation in dictum. (ii) It was in an opinion of only two justices. (iii) The court was fully aware this case was pending when we decided John R. As explained above, the lead opinion expressly stated we were not deciding whether the job-created authority theory has any validity in evaluating vicarious liability for the torts of police officers. ( Ibid. ) In light of these multiple limitations and disclaimers, it would be hard to find a more slender reed on which to conclude that John R. supports vicarious liability in this case. Moreover, I am not persuaded by the speculation in the John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d 438, lead opinion and the present majority opinion that a police officer's authority plainly surpasses that of a teacher over a student. ( Id., at p. 452.) The majority's discussion, like the lead opinion in John R., fails to provide support for this assertion, and common sense suggests to the contrary. A schoolteacher alone at his home with an impressionable child has as much power and opportunity to commit a sexual assault against the child, especially one of tender years, as a police officer has to commit an assault against a citizen. Justice Kaufman pointed out in John R., supra, that the circumstances of the case virtually guaranteed that the teacher could act with impunity.... ( Id., at p. 465 (conc. and dis. opn. of Kaufman, J.), original italics.) A teacher may have even greater apparent authority than a police officer. None of the indicia of police power cited by the majority โ the uniform, badge, and gun โ creates any appearance that the officer has the authority to rape. Plaintiff did not believe Officer Schroyer was authorized to have sexual intercourse with her. To the contrary, she struggled to avoid being raped. A young child, however, may be induced to submit to a teacher's sexual depravity by being led to believe that the teacher has the authority to commit sex acts. The allocation of risk, or loss spreading as it is sometimes called, should be reasonable and informed as well as deliberate. The decision whether to impose liability requires a delicate balancing of competing interests, particularly when the defendant at law is a public entity and the defendants in fact are the taxpayers. The determination is best left to the Legislature. Neither of the decisions on which the John R. lead opinion relied for the notion of risk allocation involved governmental entities. ( Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., supra, 2 Cal.3d 956; Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d 962.) In its comprehensive study that gave rise to the Tort Claims Act, the California Law Revision Commission explained, The problems involved in drawing standards for governmental liability and governmental immunity are of immense difficulty. Government cannot merely be made liable as private persons are, for public entities are fundamentally different from private persons.... Private persons do not prosecute and incarcerate violators of the law.... Unlike many private persons, a public entity often cannot reduce its risk of potential liability by refusing to engage in a particular activity, for government must continue to govern and is required to furnish services that cannot be adequately provided by any other agency. (Law Revision Com. Recommendations, supra, at p. 810.) The California Law Revision Commission and the Legislature required enormous amounts of empirical data and many months of collective consideration to reach difficult decisions. The majority acknowledges no difficulty whatsoever and gives no consideration to the potential effects of imposing strict liability on the City. The notion of risk allocation merits special mention in another regard. We have long emphasized that one factor to be considered in determining whether to impose a particular type of tort liability is the availability, cost, and prevalence of [liability] insurance for the risk involved. ( Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108, 113 [70 Cal. Rptr. 97, 443 P.2d 561, 32 A.L.R.3d 496].) The lead opinion in John R., supra, 48 Cal.3d 438, reiterated this concern: The imposition of vicarious liability on school districts for the sexual torts of their employees would tend to make insurance, already a scarce resource, even harder to obtain and could lead to the diversion of needed funds from the classroom to cover claims. ( Id., at p. 451.) The high cost and widespread unavailability of municipal liability insurance have been widely reported and studied. (See, e.g., Hearings on Municipal Liability Insurance (Dec. 1975) Before the Joint Assem. Coms. on Finance, Insurance, and Commerce and Local Government; Hearings on Liability Insurance: Threat to the California Dream (Aug. 1986) Before the Sen. Com. on Insurance, Claims, and Corporations; California Citizens' Commission on Tort Reform, Staff Background Paper: Government Liability (1977) pp. 24-25.) The unavailability of public liability insurance reached such crisis proportions that in 1986 it became one of the key arguments in favor of Proposition 51, which the voters enacted to restrict the liability of defendants (including public entities) for noneconomic injuries. (See Ballot Pamp., argument in favor of Prop. 51 as presented to the voters, Primary Elec. (June 3, 1986) p. 34.) The majority, however, gives no consideration to this traditionally recognized factor. Our proper function is not to usurp the Legislature's budgetary function of allocating risk for public entity torts. Even if the question were ours to answer, we do not have before us sufficient empirical data on which to make the difficult choice between competing fiscal priorities.