Court Opinion

ID: 9550007
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:27:34.516985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:10.848779
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
with whom Leavitt, D. J., agrees,
dissenting:
I conclude that the trial court was correct in granting summary judgment; therefore, I respectfully dissent.

*825
The Flangas Judgment

The case against Flangas is based on actual negligence on his part and not on vicarious liability. An employer is liable for an employee’s acts which the employer authorized or ratified, upon familiar principles of negligence and agency. Vicarious liability, on the other hand, is based on conduct which is not the conduct of the employer but which extends to any and all tortious conduct which an agent performs within the “scope of employment.” Busch does not plead a case for vicarious liability nor does she aver that all of Potter’s tortious acts were done in the scope of his employment for Flangas.
Rather than trying to impute Potter’s negligence to Flangas under the doctrine of respondeat superior, Busch’s complaint charges specific and independent negligence on the part of Flangas. According to the complaint, “Flangas knew that Defendant Potter was representing himself as an attorney and performing legal services on behalf of Defendant Flangas.” In other words, Flangas knowingly let a non-lawyer work in his office as a lawyer. There is no evidence that this charge is true.
Busch argues in her “Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment” that Potter is guilty of “malpractice per se.” This may be true, but absent an allegation that such untoward and outrageous action by Potter was done in the scope and power of his employment by Flangas, no vicarious liability can exist.1
Because there is no claim for vicarious liability and because there is no evidence to support actual negligence on the part of Flangas, I would affirm the trial court’s summary judgment in his favor.

The Potter Judgment

The gist of Busch’s claim against Potter is that Potter “represented himself to Plaintiff as an attorney and further represented that he was competent and able to prepare all documents . . . and ... to protect the Plaintiff’s [legal] interests,” and that Potter was then guilty of legal malpractice when he “negligently failed and omitted to cause the UCC-1 Financing Statement to be filed with the appropriate agency.”
If, as is clearly the case, Potter had not “represented himself to Plaintiff as an attorney,” he could not, of course, have undertaken the duty “to prepare all documents” nor “to fully protect the Plaintiff’s [legal] interests.” By Busch’s own testimony, neither Flangas nor Potter ever represented that Potter was a lawyer. Busch “assumed” that Potter was a lawyer because one of her *826customers at the bakery told her so. There is no evidence that Potter was either acting as a lawyer or representing himself to be a lawyer. According to Potter’s affidavit, he prepared the documents in question at the behest of and under the supervision of another attorney, John Stone. I believe that the trial court was correct in concluding that there was no evidence to support the allegation that Potter “represented himself to Plaintiff as an attorney” or that as a non-attorney working for attorney Stone, Potter owed a duty to Busch relative to the preparation and filing of the UCC documents. I would affirm the trial court’s summary judgment in favor of Potter.

 In the mentioned Opposition papers, Busch tardily mentions “the theory of respondeat superior,” but neither the complaint nor the motion documents support this kind of claim of liability.