Opinion ID: 1834665
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Heading: Whether a secretary has the garde of her employer's car during her operation of the vehicle

Text: This court has interpreted La.Civil Code article 2317 as providing that the person who has the garde of a thing shall be strictly liable for damage caused another by the vice or defect of the thing, his legal responsibility being based on the breach of his legal obligation to keep his thing in such condition that it does no damage to others. Loescher v. Parr, 324 So.2d 441, 447-448 (La.1976). In adopting this construction of La.Civil Code article 2317, the court was influenced by the interpretations of the French verbatim counterpart, French Civil Code article 1384(1), reached in France, Belgium and Quebec. Loescher v. Parr, supra, at 448. Although the Loescher court did not expressly make note of the fact, its interpretation closely resembles the Belgian view, which limits the article's application to cases where the accident was due to an inherent vice of the thing in question, and partially rejects the contemporary French position under which the article is capable of being applied to a vast variety of inanimate objects, whether inherently dangerous or not. See 1 Lawson & Markesinis, Tortious Liability For Unintentional Harm In The Common Law and The Civil Law 148-151 (1982); see Malone, Ruminations on Liability for the Acts of Things, 42 La.L.Rev. 979, at 996. Under La.Civil Code article 2317 the person who has the garde of a thing is he who has the legal duty to prevent its vice or defect from harming another. The determination of the existence of this duty is made through a process of policy considerations similar to that used in determining other delictual duties. See, e.g., Pitre v. Opelousas Gen. Hosp., 530 So.2d 1151 (La. 1988); PPG Industries, Inc. v. Bean Dredging, 447 So.2d 1058 (La.1984); Entrevia v. Hood, 427 So.2d 1146 (La.1983); Hill v. Lundin & Associates, Inc., 260 La. 542, 256 So.2d 620 (1972); Langlois v. Allied Chemical, 258 La. 1067, 249 So.2d 133 (La.1971). To assist the trier of fact in this deliberation this court has set forth several general principles: the liability arises from the guardian's legal relationship to the thing whose defect creates an unreasonable risk of injury to others. Loescher v. Parr, supra, at 446. The garde is the obligation imposed by law on the proprietor of a thing, or on one who avails himself of it, to prevent it from causing damage to others. The things in one's care are those things to which one bears such a relationship as to have the right of direction and control over them, and to draw some kind of benefit from them. Loescher v. Parr, supra, at 449 (quoting Verlander, We Are Responsible ... 2 Tulane Civil Law Forum, No. 2, p. 64 (1974)). The guardian is in a better position than the innocent victim to detect, evaluate and take steps to eliminate an unreasonable risk of harm arising in the thing. Ross v. La Coste de Monterville, 502 So.2d 1026, 1032 (La.1987). Further guidance may be obtained from doctrine if it is carefully analyzed. For example, this court has observed that, in the actual application of French law, the garde of a thing can sometimes be divided between two persons, that is, between the guardian of the conduct of the object who is presumed to be responsible for damage caused by its behavior and the guardian of its structure who is responsible for damage caused by the object's defects. Ross v. La Coste de Monterville, supra, at 1030. For example, in the case of damage done by a car driven in a parking garage by an attendant, the owner does not have the garde of the behavior of the vehicle after he has transferred the powers of use, direction and control to the garage, but the owner continues to have the garde of his car's structure so as to make him responsible if the accident was caused by its vice or defect. See Ross v. La Coste de Monterville, supra, at 1030-1031 citing French authorities. In view of this doctrine and underlying policy considerations, this court concluded that an owner of a thing who transfers its possession to another, continues to have the garde of its structure and is obliged to protect others from damage caused by structural defects arising before the transfer. Ross v. La Coste de Monterville, supra, at 1029-1032. It was pointed out, however, that the French doctrine pertaining to the garde of the behavior of a thing is not relevant to a determination of garde under La.Civil Code article 2317 because the Louisiana principle of strict liability is limited to damage resulting from a vice or defect creating an unreasonable risk of harm in the thing. Id. For this reason, a Louisiana jurist seeking guidance from the French commentators must distinguish carefully between discussions of the garde of the structure of the thing, commentary on the garde of behavior of the thing, and discourse on the general concept of garde which includes the garde of both structure and behavior of things in French law. Moreover, astute scholars have observed that, in practice, the French courts actually attribute the garde according to empirical policy considerations such as which party is in a better position to discover the defect or control the thing that caused the harm. 1 Lawson & Markesinis, supra at 156. In the present case, and in many others, a very important consideration in determining whether a person has the garde of a thing may be found in the policy established by related statutes. The Highway Regulatory Act provides that [n]o person shall ... knowingly permit any vehicle owned or controlled by him to be driven or moved, on any highway ... in such unsafe condition as to endanger any person or property, or which is not properly equipped as required by law. La.R.S. 32:53. The act further provides that every motor vehicle, when operated upon a highway of this state, shall be equipped with brakes adequate to control the movement of and to stop and hold such vehicle, and the act establishes brake performance standards. La.R.S. 32:341-346. Finally, the statute imposes criminal penalties for the violation of the provisions. La.R.S. 32:57. The Highway Regulatory Act, La.R.S. 32:53, thus, under pain of fine and imprisonment, prohibits the owner of a motor vehicle from knowingly permitting its operation with defective brakes on the state highways. The statutory provisions regulating the maintenance and equipment of automobiles constitutes express legislative recognition of the fact that improperly maintained motor vehicles threaten a grave risk of serious bodily harm or death; that the responsibility for minimizing that risk rests primarily with the person who owns the vehicle; and that the discharge of the duty to maintain the safety of his vehicle is of the utmost importance to the public. The statute clearly sets forth this state's policy that a motor vehicle owner is responsible for its care, maintenance and safe operating condition even when it is in the physical custody and control of another person. Moreover, the compulsory Motor Vehicle Liability Security Act, La.R.S. 32:861 et seq., under pain of suspension of driving privileges, imposes a duty upon the registered owner of a motor vehicle the duty to insure, or otherwise provide security for, himself and anyone responsible for the operation of the vehicle, against liability arising out of the ownership, operation, maintenance, control, or use upon the highways and roads of the state of such motor vehicle. La.R.S. 32:861(B). These provisions reflect a policy that the owner of a motor vehicle shall have the responsibility of compensating for any damage done to others by his failure to properly maintain the vehicle even if the accident which caused the damage occurs while the vehicle is being operated by another person. In view of the clear legislative policy and other empirical considerations, we conclude that the owner of an automobile continues to have the garde of it and to be responsible for the damage caused by its vice or defect even while it is in the physical custody or control of another. Moreover, the owner of an automobile, unlike the owner of some other things, has the garde of the vehicle even if the vice or defect causing damage to another arises after the owner transfers physical possession of the car to someone else. Compare Ross v. La Coste de Monterville, supra, at 1030-1031. The ultimate question in the present case, however, is whether, under the circumstances, the law imposes the duty of garde upon a secretarial employee such as Mrs. Greig, as well as upon her employer, the owner of the vehicle. Although the possibility of a cumulative employee guardianship should not be ruled out entirely, we conclude that in this kind of case the employee's legal relationship with the vehicle is not of such a degree or quality as to create the duty of garde. A secretarial-receptionist, such as Mrs. Greig, customarily may be required to drive her employer's vehicle in connection with her work, but it would be highly unusual for such an employee to be assigned either the duty or the authority to regularly maintain its brakes or other equipment. Moreover, the evidence does not indicate that Mrs. Greig had been delegated the right or the obligation to perform such maintenance on the vehicle. The record reflects that she was granted only the limited authority to drive the vehicle in order to perform a brief mission for her employer. She did not have the right of direction or control of the vehicle to the extent that she was empowered to maintain its brakes or other structural equipment. Consequently, Mrs. Greig was not in a position to detect, evaluate or remedy any vice or defect in the automobile's brake system. An argument could be made for the proposition that, when the principal or employer specifically delegates to an employee the personal duty to maintain the employer's vehicle, the employee becomes the guardian of the vehicle cumulatively with the employer. This reasoning is analogous to the criteria for imposing individual liability upon a corporate officer, agent, supervisor, or employee for allegedly causing damage to another by his negligent breach of his individual employment duty. See Canter v. Koehring Company, 283 So.2d 716 (La. 1973). Accordingly, under this theory, the employee would not be considered a guardian of the vehicle simply because its maintenance fell within his general administrative responsibility, or if the maintenance function had been delegated specifically and personally to a responsible subordinate or subordinates, but only if the employee in question had a personal duty of care as to the maintenance of the structure and equipment of the particular vehicle. See Canter v. Koehring Company, supra, at 721. However, because this is a matter of some complexity, and because Mrs. Greig clearly would not be a guardian even under this suggested scheme, we need not decide in this case whether the duty of garde may be imposed upon an employee with respect to his employer's motor vehicle or set forth definitively any criteria for its imposition.