Court Opinion

ID: 9538815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:42:08.999363+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:10.537330
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent. Justice Kennard demonstrates that the Court of Appeal’s decision is without error and hence that its judgment should be affirmed. I join in her opinion.
I write separately to emphasize the unsoundness of the majority’s reasoning and the incorrectness of their result.
*307In its narrowest scope, the doctrine of respondeat superior declares that “the employer’s responsibility for the torts of his employee extends beyond his actual or possible control of the servant to injuries which are ‘risks of the enterprise.’ ” (Hinman v. Westinghouse Elec. Co. (1970) 2 Cal.3d 956, 960 [88 Cal.Rptr. 188, 471 P.2d 988].) For its firmest basis, the doctrine rests on the premise that such injuries are costs that the employer’s business imposes on the community—costs that the employer may equitably be required to avoid if he can or to cover if he cannot: “ ‘We are not here looking for the master’s fault but rather for risks that may fairly be regarded as typical of or broadly incidental to the enterprise he has undertaken. . . . Further, we are not looking for that which can and should reasonably be avoided, but with the more or less inevitable toll of a lawful enterprise.’ ” (Ibid., quoting 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts (1956) pp. 1376-1377.)
The majority recognize, as they must, that “[n]onsexual assaults” come within the doctrine of respondeat superior “if they originate[] in a work-related dispute,” as when an “employee truck driver[] assault[s]. . . another motorist following [a] dispute over [the] employee’s driving.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 300.) Such an attack, of course, falls beyond the doctrine’s bounds if “ ‘the misconduct . . . arises out of a personal dispute,’ ” as when an “ ‘on-duty bartender assault[s] [a bystander] in the course of a personal dispute [between the bartender and] his common law wife . . . .’” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 301, quoting Farmers Ins. Group v. County of Santa Clara (1995). 11 Cal.4th 992, 1006 [47 Cal.Rptr.2d 478, 906 P.2d 440].)
It follows that sexual assaults are within the doctrine of respondeat superior if they originate in work-related concupiscence, as when “a physician or therapist. . . becomes sexually involved with a patient as a result of mishandling the feelings predictably created by the therapeutic relationship . . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 303.) Similarly, an attack of this sort is outside the doctrine’s limits if the impropriety springs from a particularized lust, as when a meat cutter makes a sexual advance on a customer as he fills an order. (Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Lantrip (1934) 26 Ala.App. 79 [153 So. 296, 298] [applying Alabama law].)
In my view, it is at least a question for the trier of fact whether the sexual assault in this cause comes within the doctrine of respondeat superior. The facts are undisputed that, in the course of his employment at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, Bruce Wayne Tripoli, an ultrasound technician, was required to have intimate physical contact with female patients, like Lisa M., which involved the touching of their breasts and the rubbing of their pubic areas—all without a chaperon. The facts are also undisputed that Tripoli had no acquaintance whatever with Lisa apart from the event with *308which we are here concerned. In a word, it is certainly arguable that the itch that Tripoli improperly scratched arose from intimate physical contact that was altogether proper to his work. The majority claim to discern a particularized lust rather than work-related concupiscence. They blink reality. Worse still, they ignore the undisputed facts. The “[h]ospital,” they admit, “may have set the stage for [Tripoli’s] misconduct. . . .” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 19.) “[B]ut the script,” they assert “was entirely of his own, independent invention.” (Ibid.) On that point, perhaps they are right. They are wrong, however, in refusing to acknowledge that his inspiration arose from the mise-en-scéne established by the hospital.1
In conclusion, having found no error in the Court of Appeal’s decision, I would affirm its judgment.

The unfortunate but inevitable result of the majority’s analysis is to exempt the health care employer, at least in part, from the doctrine of respondeat superior. I merely note that what they call the “three identified policy goals of the respondeat superior doctrine—preventing future injuries, assuring compensation to victims, and spreading the losses caused by an enterprise equitably’’ (maj. opn., ante, at p. 304)—do not justify exemption. Even if application of the doctrine furthers none of these objects, it nevertheless compels the health care employer to avoid or cover the costs his business imposes on the community. “Fairness is served thereby,” and the “efficient use of limited resources is furthered.” (Smiley v. Citibank (1995) 11 Cal.4th 138, 161 [44 Cal.Rptr.2d 441, 900 P.2d 690].)