Opinion ID: 8414582
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Analogy Between Chattels and Authority

Text: We see no principled reason to hold employers liable for the tortious abuse of their chattels but not for the tortious abuse of supervisory authority. Defendants’ argument asks us to predict that Illinois courts would treat entrustment with keys or with a truck as more serious than entrustment with control over others’ livelihoods. Cf. Carter, 195 Ill.Dec. 138, 628 N.E.2d at 605 (claim for willful and wanton hiring supported where security guard used his passkey to enter plaintiffs apartment and assault her), discussing Easley v. Apollo Detective Agency, Inc., 69 Ill.App.3d 920, 26 Ill.Dec. 313, 387 N.E.2d 1241, 1243 (1979); Malorney v. B & L Motor Freight, Inc., 146 Ill.App.3d 265, 100 Ill.Dec. 21, 496 N.E.2d 1086, 1088-89 (1986) (question of fact for the jury existed in negligent hiring case, where employer equipped driver with truck in which he raped hitchhiker). Formalistic adherence to the literal terms of § 317(a) would also produce odd, even arbitrary, results. In Kigin v. Woodmen of the World Ins. Co., 185 Ill.App.3d 400, 133 Ill.Dec. 524, 541 N.E.2d 735, 737 (1989), for example, an Illinois appellate court held that the plaintiff stated a claim against the operator of a youth camp for the actions of a camp counselor. The counselor, a 41-year-old man, gave alcohol to a 15-year-old female camper, took her to a remote area of the campground, and sexually molested her. Id., 133 Ill.Dec. 524, 541 N.E.2d at 736. The Kigin court noted that the attack took place on the defendant’s premises, bringing it within the terms of § 317(a). Id. We think it unlikely that the result would have been different if the attacker had taken his victim across the property line of the campground. The employer knew that the counselor had gone “off into the woods at 11:30 at night alone with [a] 15-year-old girl[] after plying” her with alcohol. Id., 133 Ill.Dec. 524, 541 N.E.2d at 737. The employer’s obligation to act on that information surely does not change depending on whether the counsel- or crossed a property line when he took his victim away. Both entrustment with a chattel and entrustment with supervisory authority set employees apart from the general public. Both can enable tortious conduct. In both situations, employers have the ability and incentive to consider and monitor the employees whom they are trusting and how that trust is used. Injuries caused by using a chattel and injuries caused by abusing supervisory authority both occur “by virtue of the [tortfeasor’s] employment,” and not because the tortfeasor and victim merely know each other through their work. Doe, 378 Ill.Dec. 667, 4 N.E.3d at 561.