Opinion ID: 1152542
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Review of Pertinent Law on Respondeat Superior

Text: (1) The rule of respondeat superior is familiar and simply stated: an employer is vicariously liable for the torts of its employees committed within the scope of the employment. ( Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc. (1986) 41 Cal.3d 962, 967 [227 Cal. Rptr. 106, 719 P.2d 676].) [2] Equally well established, if somewhat surprising on first encounter, is the principle that an employee's willful, malicious and even criminal torts may fall within the scope of his or her employment for purposes of respondeat superior, even though the employer has not authorized the employee to commit crimes or intentional torts. ( Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles (1991) 54 Cal.3d 202, 209 [285 Cal. Rptr. 99, 814 P.2d 1341]; John R. v. Oakland Unified School Dist. (1989) 48 Cal.3d 438, 447 [256 Cal. Rptr. 766, 769 P.2d 948]; Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co. (1946) 28 Cal.2d 652, 654 [171 P.2d 5].) What, then, is the connection required between an employee's intentional tort and his or her work so that the employer may be held vicariously liable? It is clear, first of all, that California no longer follows the traditional rule that an employee's actions are within the scope of employment only if motivated, in whole or part, by a desire to serve the employer's interests. (See Rest.2d Agency, § 228, subd. 1(c) [conduct must be actuated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the master].) Our departure from that limiting rule dates at least from the leading case of Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co., supra, 28 Cal.2d 652. In Carr, this court held a building contractor liable for injuries caused when an employee, angry at a subcontractor's employee for interfering in his work, threw a hammer at the other worker's head. We rejected the defendant's claim its employee was not acting within the scope of employment because he could not have intended by his conduct to further the employer's interests:  It is sufficient, however, if the injury resulted from a dispute arising out of the employment.... `It is not necessary that the assault should have been made as a means, or for the purpose of performing the work he (the employee) was employed to do. ' (28 Cal.2d at p. 654, quoting Hiroshima v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co. (1936) 18 Cal. App.2d 24, 28 [63 P.2d 340], italics added; accord, Fields v. Sanders (1947) 29 Cal.2d 834, 839 [180 P.2d 684, 172 A.L.R. 525] [that tortious act was not committed in order to further the interests of the principal does not preclude vicarious liability]; Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 969 [The plaintiff need not demonstrate that the assault was committed for the purpose of accomplishing the employee's assigned tasks.]; Rodgers v. Kemper Constr. Co., supra, 50 Cal. App.3d at p. 621 [[T]he `motive test,' though still the `majority rule,' has been abandoned in California.].) [3] While the employee thus need not have intended to further the employer's interests, the employer will not be held liable for an assault or other intentional tort that did not have a causal nexus to the employee's work. This rule, too, can be traced to Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co., supra, 28 Cal.2d 652. There the court acknowledged that [i]f an employee inflicts an injury out of personal malice, not engendered by the employment, the employer is not liable. ( Id. at p. 656, italics added.) We further explained that in the case under consideration the attack was, indeed, an outgrowth of the employee's work: Not only did the altercation leading to the injury arise solely over the performance of [the employee's] duties, but his entire association with plaintiff arose out of his employment on the building under construction. ( Id. at p. 657.) In Rodgers v. Kemper Constr. Co., supra, 50 Cal. App.3d 608, 614-616, off-duty employees, who had been drinking beer at the jobsite, assaulted workers for another contractor after requesting and being refused a ride on a bulldozer driven by one of the victims. Applying the analysis developed in Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co., supra , the Court of Appeal found substantial evidence the attack  in which the victims were seriously injured and permanently disabled  was within the scope of the assailants' employment. The assailants and victims, the court noted, were complete strangers until their work brought them together; thus the dispute could not have derived from personal malice unrelated to the employment. (50 Cal. App.3d at p. 621.) Rather, a work-related dispute was the proximate cause of the attack. ( Ibid. ) Because an intentional tort gives rise to respondeat superior liability only if it was engendered by the employment, our disavowal of motive as a singular test of respondeat superior liability does not mean the employee's motive is irrelevant. An act serving only the employee's personal interest is less likely to arise from or be engendered by the employment than an act that, even if misguided, was intended to serve the employer in some way. (2) The nexus required for respondeat superior liability  that the tort be engendered by or arise from the work  is to be distinguished from but for causation. [4] That the employment brought tortfeasor and victim together in time and place is not enough. We have used varied language to describe the nature of the required additional link (which, in theory, is the same for intentional and negligent torts): the incident leading to injury must be an outgrowth of the employment ( Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co., supra, 28 Cal.2d 652, 657); the risk of tortious injury must be `inherent in the working environment' ( id. at p. 656) or `typical of or broadly incidental to the enterprise [the employer] has undertaken' ( Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 956, 960 [88 Cal. Rptr. 188, 471 P.2d 988]). Looking at the matter with a slightly different focus, California courts have also asked whether the tort was, in a general way, foreseeable from the employee's duties. Respondeat superior liability should apply only to the types of injuries that `as a practical matter are sure to occur in the conduct of the employer's enterprise.' ( Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co., supra, 2 Cal.3d at p. 959.) The employment, in other words, must be such as predictably to create the risk employees will commit intentional torts of the type for which liability is sought. In what has proved an influential formulation, the court in Rodgers v. Kemper Constr. Co., supra, 50 Cal. App.3d at page 618, held the tortious occurrence must be a generally foreseeable consequence of the activity. In this usage, the court further explained, foreseeability merely means that 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. ( Id. at p. 619; accord, John R. v. Oakland Unified School Dist., supra, 48 Cal.3d at p. 450, fn. 9; Perez v. Van Groningen & Sons, Inc., supra, 41 Cal.3d at p. 968; Martinez v. Hagopian (1986) 182 Cal. App.3d 1223, 1228 [227 Cal. Rptr. 763]; Alma W. v. Oakland Unified School Dist. (1981) 123 Cal. App.3d 133, 141-142 [176 Cal. Rptr. 287].) The Rodgers foreseeability test is useful because it reflects the central justification for respondeat superior [liability]: that losses fairly attributable to an enterprise  those which foreseeably result from the conduct of the enterprise  should be allocated to the enterprise as a cost of doing business. ( Farmers Ins. Group v. County of Santa Clara (1995) 11 Cal.4th 992, 1004 [47 Cal. Rptr.2d 478, 906 P.2d 440].) (3) 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.' ( Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 213.) Neither plaintiff nor Hospital has pointed to factual disputes that would prevent us in this case from deciding the applicability of respondeat superior as a matter of law.