Opinion ID: 222642
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Executive-Officer Liability for Negligence

Text: The parties disagree over the application of Louisiana’s executive-officer liability doctrine to this case. Under Louisiana law, a court may hold a corporate 7 Case: 10-31132 Document: 00511563753 Page: 8 Date Filed: 08/05/2011 No. 10-31132 officer or employee individually liable for injuries to third persons under certain circumstances.1 Canter, 283 So. 2d at 721–22. This “liability may be imposed on such individuals even if the duty breached arises solely from the employment relationship.” Guillory, 434 F.3d at 312 (citing Ford v. Elsbury, 32 F.3d 931, 936 (5th Cir. 1994)). Referred to as “Canter liability,” after the Louisiana Supreme Court decision in which it was established, Plaintiffs must prove the following elements in order to recover: (1) CTL owed a duty of care to Martin Young, the breach of which caused the damages for which recovery is sought; (2) CTL delegated its duty to McLelland; and (3) McLelland breached the delegated duty through “personal (as contrasted with technical or vicarious) fault”; but (4) “personal liability cannot be imposed upon [McLelland] simply because of his general administrative responsibility for performance of some function of the employment.” Canter, 283 So. 2d at 721; see also Guillory, 434 F.3d at 312. The magistrate judge’s order, adopted by the district court, found that Plaintiffs would be unable to succeed on this claim because their complaint, along with certain summary evidence, failed to show that McLelland owed a personal duty to Martin Young. It found that the duties alleged were nothing more than those imposed because of general administrative responsibilities and not owed personally to Young. Additionally, it found that the record evidence supported this lack of a personal duty because it did not show that McLelland had any knowledge of a dangerous condition that might harm Young. Plaintiffs maintain that the magistrate judge’s order failed to properly analyze personal duty. They argue that McLelland’s negligence arose from 1 Louisiana’s workers’ compensation law was amended in 1976 to prevent suits by company employees against executive officers for work-related injuries, except for intentional tort claims. See LA. REV. STAT. § 23:1032. In cases where the suit is brought by a nonemployee third-party, as here, executive-officer liability for negligence has not been abrogated. See In re 1994 Exxon Chemical Fire, 558 F.3d 378, 386 (5th Cir. 2009) (“Canter’s four-part test is used to determine whether an employee is individually liable to third persons, even if they are not co-employees.”) (citations omitted). 8 Case: 10-31132 Document: 00511563753 Page: 9 Date Filed: 08/05/2011 No. 10-31132 “activities within the course and scope of his duties as terminal manager.” Specifically, they identify a passage from a CTL driver-orientation manual, which notes that management personnel (1) are directly responsible for the instruction of all employees in proper safety procedures; (2) must immediately correct hazardous conditions in the workplace; and (3) must provide full support for all safety procedures and training. Further, they note that McLelland knew Martin Young well, and used to walk through the work bay correcting unsafe practices multiple times a day. Therefore, they argue, McLelland’s general duties as a manager were also personally owed to Young, and McLelland breached those duties. We disagree. In Ford v. Elsbury, we considered whether the plant manager of a factory where the plaintiffs were injured by an explosion was fraudulently joined, or whether the plaintiffs had shown a possibility of prevailing against him on their Canter liability claim. 32 F.3d at 935. In that case, we noted that a key issue in deciding whether there was a possibility of the plant manager’s personal liability was whether the plant manager “was aware or should have been aware of a risk of harm and nevertheless failed to respond to the risk in the manner in which a reasonably prudent plant manager would respond in the same or similar circumstances.” Id. at 936. We further explained that “[a] supervisor’s knowledge of the dangers present ‘could give rise to the personal duty contemplated in Canter.’” Id. (quoting Hayden v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 788 F. Supp. 285, 287 (E.D. La. 1992)). Viewing the record, we cited to several affidavits and deposition testimony that indicated it was likely that the plant manager knew of the dangerous condition. See id. at 939. On this basis, we reversed the district court’s determination of fraudulent joinder. Id. Unlike in Ford, Plaintiffs have not pleaded that McLelland had any knowledge of the presence of toxic chemicals in the trailer in which Martin Young fell, nor is there evidence that McLelland should have known about such 9 Case: 10-31132 Document: 00511563753 Page: 10 Date Filed: 08/05/2011 No. 10-31132 a condition. While the complaint alleges that both CTL and McLelland failed to “ensure the Delta Trailer, Inc. garage around and in which Martin Young worked prevented his exposure to harmful emissions, although such technology was available and known to” CTL and McLelland, it does not allege that CTL delegated such responsibility specifically to McLelland. Without either knowledge of the dangerous condition, or the possibility that he was specifically delegated responsibility of inspecting the trailers for CTL on a daily basis, Plaintiffs cannot show the existence of a personal duty that was breached here. See, e.g., Hoerner v. ANCO Insulations, Inc., 812 So. 2d 45, 63–64 (La. App. Ct. 2002) (noting that the proper test to determine whether an executive officer had a personal duty to the plaintiff is “whether the executive officer in question had some direct duty to provide [the plaintiff] a safe place to work”). Further, the Louisiana Supreme Court has explained that in order for personal liability to attach under Canter, “that person must have some personal contact with and responsibility towards the injured employee.” Esco v. Smith, 468 So. 2d 1169, 1175 (La. 1985). Although Plaintiffs failed to allege any such personal contact in their complaint, McLelland’s deposition does indicate that he did have contact with Young on a daily basis. Young was not, however, an employee of CTL. This distinguishes Young from the plaintiffs in many of the Louisiana cases that Plaintiffs cite for the proposition that a manager’s “personal duty and liability can fall within the course and scope of the manager’s duties.” See Lytell v. Hushfield, 408 So. 2d 1344, 1347–48 & n.8 (La. 1982) (noting the employer’s “duty to provide its employees with a reasonably safe place to work” under LA. REV. STAT. § 23:13); Pisciotta v. Allstate Ins. Co., 385 So. 2d 1176, 1185 & n.1 (La. 1979) (on rehearing) (same); Cole v. Celotex Corp., 588 So. 2d 376, 382 (La. Ct. App. 1991), aff’d, 599 So. 2d 1058 (La. 1992) (same). 10 Case: 10-31132 Document: 00511563753 Page: 11 Date Filed: 08/05/2011 No. 10-31132 Thus, to the extent that McLelland was delegated certain safety responsibility for CTL employees, per the driver-orientation manual, these were not necessarily the same duties he owed to Young, a non-employee. In the end, Plaintiffs have merely alleged that McLelland had general safety responsibilities. They have not alleged facts or identified evidence that create a possibility that McLelland owed a personal duty to Young to ensure that the trailer he worked on was toxin-free. Because the pleadings and summaryinquiry evidence do not create the possibility that McLelland owed a “personal duty” to Young with regard to the trailer, Defendants have shown that Plaintiffs have no possibility of prevailing on this claim against McLelland.