Court Opinion

ID: 9731035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:31:11.512636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:12.458171
License: Public Domain

CAYCE, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the majority’s decision to affirm the judgment of the trial court with respect to Heflin. I disagree, however, with the majority’s conclusion that “there is some evidence from which a jury could reasonably find that Heflin was acting in the course and scope of his employment” with Minyard when he slandered Goodman. The “some evidence” to which the majority refers is Heflin’s cooperation with Minyard’s investigation of Flowers’s allegations. Contrary to the majority’s rationale, however, while it may have been within the course and scope of Heflin’s employment to cooperate with the investigation, there is no evidence that when Heflin lied about Goodman he did it to accomplish any objective for which he was employed. See Lyon v. Allsup’s Convenience Stores, Inc., 997 S.W.2d 345, 347-48 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1999, no pet.) (holding that supervising employee’s defamation of another employee not within course and scope of employment because it was “not done to accomplish any object for which [the employee] was hired”). In fact, all of the evidence before us proves Hef-lin’s lies about Goodman were deviations from his duties as a Minyard’s employee.
Therefore, I would reverse the judgment against Minyard, render judgment that Goodman take nothing on her slander claims against Minyard, and affirm the judgment as to Heflin.