Opinion ID: 2134995
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Heading: Personal Liability of Corporate Officers.

Text: In addition to applying the general negligence standard, courts generally hold that a corporate officer must take part personally in the commission of the tort to be held personally liable for negligence. To maintain a tort claim against a director in his or her personal capacity, a plaintiff must first show that the director specifically authorized, directed or participated in the allegedly tortious conduct. Frances T. v. Village Green Owners Ass'n, 42 Cal.3d 490, 229 Cal.Rptr. 456, 723 P.2d 573, 583-84 (1986); Cherry, 420 S.E.2d at 765. See William E. Knepper & Dan A. Bailey, Liability of Corporate Officers and Directors § 2.11, at 66 (1988) [hereinafter Knepper & Bailey]; 19 C.J.S. Corporations § 544 (1990). Liability against a corporate officer normally will not be imposed merely because of performing some general administrative responsibility. Galloway v. Employers Mut. of Wausau, 286 So.2d 676, 680 (La.App.1974). This limitation reflects the oft-stated disinclination to hold an agent personally liable for economic losses when, in the ordinary course of his duties to his own corporation, the agent incidentally harms the pecuniary interests of a third party. Frances T., 229 Cal.Rptr. at 464, 723 P.2d at 581. Nonetheless, the fact that a tort is committed by an officer working under a corporate name makes the individual corporate officer no less culpable for the act than if acting outside the corporate name. The legal fiction of the corporation as an independent entityand the special benefit of limited liability permitted therebyis intended to insulate stockholders from personal liability for corporate acts and to insulate officers from liability for corporate contracts; the corporate fiction, however, was never intended to insulate officers from liability for their own tortious conduct. Frances T., 229 Cal.Rptr. at 466, 723 P.2d at 583. We hold corporate officers can be held liable for negligence if they take part personally in the commission of the tort against a third party.