Court Opinion

ID: 9560666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:53:28.964982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:05.352005
License: Public Domain

JONES, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent.
Plaintiff brought this personal injury action, alleging liability of Construction 80, Inc. (defendant), for negligent retention of its sole employee (Barmon) and vicarious liability for Barmon’s actions. Defendant moved for summary judgment on all issues, which the trial court granted. Plaintiff appealed to the Court of Appeals, which concluded as a matter of law that the trial court was correct in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the negligent retention claim. Chesterman v. Barmon, 82 Or App 1, 727 P2d 130 (1986). Plaintiff did not cross-appeal, and that issue is not before us. The remaining issue before us is, if the employer is without fault, does the doctrine of respondeat superior justify denial of the motion for summary judgment as to plaintiffs remaining negligence claims? Plaintiff sets forth in her response to the petition for review:
“The complaint filed by the plaintiff alleges that the defendant was negligent in two particulars, (1) taking illegal drugs, ‘when he knew or should have known it would affect his behavior’, and (2) entering plaintiffs home after he took the drugs ‘when he knew or should have known he would be unable to control his behavior or accurately perceive that he was subjecting the plaintiff to harmful conduct.’ ”
The Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court erred in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment on these vicarious liability claims because “a reasonable jury could infer from Barmon’s testimony that he was motivated to take the drug, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the employer by staying up to finish the bid” and that the causation question was clearly one for the jury. I disagree. The Court of Appeals misinterpreted the record in this case.
The majority opinion asserts that
“our task is not to decide whether the employee was negligent or, if he were negligent, whether the corporation is liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior. Our only task is to decide whether, on the record before the trial court on the *449motion for summary judgment, that court could decide as a matter of law that the corporation could not be held vicariously liable for the employee’s actions. * * *” 305 Or at 441.
Despite the majority’s disclaimer, this court should examine the question of the employee’s negligence, insofar as that negligence is an indispensable element of the employer’s liability under respondeat superior. As this court has said previously, and as the majority repeats, “[u]nder the doctrine of respondeat superior, an employer is liable for the torts of his employee when the employee is acting within the scope of his employment.” Stanfield v. Laccoarce, 284 Or 651, 654, 588 P2d 1271 (1978) (emphasis added). In addition to the necessary element of the employee acting within the scope of employment, it is obvious from this formulation of the doctrine of respondeat superior that the employee must have committed a tortious act.
The doctrine of respondeat superior is not an independent cause of action.
“The foundation of the action is still negligence, or other fault, * * * all the law has done is to broaden the liability for that fault by imposing it upon an additional, albeit innocent, defendant. It is still an action for negligence, and the ordinary rules of negligence liability are still applied to it.” Keeton, Prosser and Keeton on Torts 499 (5th ed 1984).
In considering whether the court should grant a motion for summary judgment, the trial court should look to all the record — all the record as it is then before the court. The basis for plaintiffs claim lies in plaintiffs allegations. Ultimately, if plaintiff is to prevail it must be because plaintiff has produced evidence to support the allegations in the complaint necessary to make a cause of action. This same requirement is a part of the test applied to a motion for summary judgment. “All defendants have to show is that the admitted factual posture of the case is such that plaintiff would not be entitled to a jury determination.” Seeborg v. General Motors Corporation, 284 Or 695, 701, 588 P2d 1100 (1978).
Applying these principles to the present case as it was before the court at the time that the court decided the motion for summary judgment, it follows that plaintiffs allegations of Barmon’s negligence were a necessary part of plaintiffs claim *450against defendant. If the factual posture of the case as constructed by plaintiff would not allow a jury verdict on the question of the employee’s tortious action, as alleged by the plaintiff, then defendant should prevail on the motion for summary judgment. In the present case the facts are insufficient to establish the negligence alleged by plaintiff.
Summary judgments are evaluated by pleadings, affidavits and other “evidence” offered in the form of exhibits. In this case the “evidence” consists of exhibits offered by plaintiff to support her opposition to defendant’s motion for summary judgment, including a transcript of Mr. and Mrs. Barmon’s testimony given during Harry Barmon’s criminal trial for burglary, rape and sexual abuse. No other exhibits were offered concerning Barmon’s knowledge of the effects of the drugs or motivation for his actions. The exhibits simply fail to produce any evidence to back up the single remaining allegation in plaintiffs complaint, to wit: “Ingesting LSD when he knew or should have known it would affect his behavior.”1
Barmon testified at the trial:
“Gary [Barmon’s electrician] told me about these chocolate mescaline he had taken at a party, and he said it just made him giggle, and they were drinking beer. I said, ‘Isn’t that kind of dangerous, drugs and beer?’ He said, ‘Oh, no. It was a kick.’ He felt elevated, and he felt very great. * * * [H]e knew I was really down. It seemed like it was prolonged forever and going on and on and on and having to answer to all of the people I worked with, and they said, ‘When are you going to see money? When is this going to come to court?’ I didn’t have any idea it would take a year and a half, and Gary knew I was down and told me about the — these chocolate mescaline. In fact, he had some with him, and he gave me four of them at that time. He also gave me some little pink pills. He said that these will give you pep to get you through the day.
“They were pink, heart-shaped pills that he called ‘speed.’ I took the pink pills, and they gave me energy to get through the day, and then I was just totally exhausted. I kind of was *451the person who kind of was pushing the crew to get them to produce and tell them what to do, and as I said, I was more depressed, and I wasn’t pushing very hard, and the guys were coming about to a standstill. Things were really slowing down. When I took the speed, productivity seemed to pick up, and all it did is it seemed like it gave me some energy, and so I took a few of those, and then I went down, and I got my hair cut, and I was cautious about the chocolate mescaline because I don’t know — I didn’t know about the stuff. So I asked John, my barber, ‘What do you know about these things?’ He said that — I said, ‘They are chocolate mescaline. Have you ever had it?’ He said, ‘Yes, he had mescaline before.’
“I faked taking one of them, and I dropped it down the sink, and John put one in his mouth, and I was going to observe what happened to him, but just — this is just after I got in there, and he was cutting somebody else’s hair * * *.
“What I was going to observe was to see what John’s feedback was on it, but I had to leave before — it didn’t have any effect. I said, ‘Do you feel it?’ And he said, ‘No.’ I left there not knowing what the effect was.” (Emphasis added.)
The transcript reveals that on the evening in question Barmon took the pills to ward off “dropping in this depression,” which was described as a “let-down feeling, tension” brought about by trying to get a construction bid together. He testified:
“I was there for a long time working up plans and drawing them sketches. I drew a floorplan for them, and I remember I was really working hard. I was putting out everything that I had. I was really trying to sell my expertise and my credibility and hoping that that would open the door so I would have a good chance when I made my presentation, the facts, and figures that they would go with me.
“Work by then was getting — slacking off. The boom was no longer going, and Lexington Construction was no longer an entity, and I had started another construction company after this, and — Construction ‘80, and I really wanted the job. I remember working very hard at it, and I left the house, and I felt like I had almost overstayed my visit. I must have been there — maybe I didn’t. It was 10:30, 11:00.1 am guessing it was somewhere in that vicinity, and it was kind of a let-down feeling, tension, and everything when I got outside of there, outside of their house, and I was taking some notes about side-yard access, what kind of piece of equipment I could get in, and I noticed that there was a fence that — a section of fence I *452could remove that would be fairly easy. I just took a few notes, and then I started feeling very down.
“Dr. Forman was going through my mind, and I started dropping in this depression, and it was really imperative that I stay with this bid and get my figures together, and I wound up taking out the pills, and I get one of them, and it was just kind of like a little necessary quick couple of crunches, and it was gone.
“Q That was the chocolate mescaline?
“A Yes.” (Emphasis added.)
Plaintiff concedes that her complaint is based upon an allegation that Barmon knew or should have known that taking the alleged illegal drugs would affect his behavior. The record clearly demonstrates that he did not know, nor is there any evidence from which he should have known, what the effect of the “drugs” would be. As a matter of fact, he thought he was taking chocolate mescaline but actually took LSD. He was not charged with recklessness in not knowing what drug he took. Previously, Barmon had a reaction to ingesting mushrooms and had been pepped up by speed, but there is not one iota of evidence that Barmon knew or should have known what the effect of either chocolate mescaline or LSD would be. Psychedelic mushrooms are not the same as mescaline, a cactus derivative, and speed (an amphetamine) is not the same as LSD. The majority ignores the fact that a specific drug was alleged to have been ingested and it appears to lump all these remarkably different drugs into one category. The majority footnotes that it is unable to tell from the record what drug Barmon ingested. If he did not know what drug he took, be it aspirin, heroin, speed, a sleeping pill, etc., how can he possibly be charged with knowing it, whatever it was, would affect his behavior?
On the date in issue, Barmon’s first reaction to the drug he ingested began when he started to experience “bright lights, flashing, and a feeling that eyeballs are constantly watching him” while he was driving to a house he formerly owned, a destination totally unrelated to any work activity. There is no lay or expert evidence that raises a fact issue that Barmon ever before hallucinated from taking either LSD or chocolate mescaline, nor is there any evidence from any source that defendant, viewed subjectively or objectively, had *453or should have heard, read or been warned about the bizarre effects of either of these drugs. There is no evidence that it was reasonably foreseeable that when Barmon took what he thought was mescaline it could result in his committing rape and sexually abusing a stranger. Plaintiff suggests that:
“It is appropriate for this Court, as a policy matter, to consider the dangerousness of drug use as a factor in determining liability. See., e.g., DiCosala v. Kay, 91 NJ 159, 450 A2d 508 (1981), which applied a less strict test for foreseeability because the harm was the result of the use of a gun, which the court called a ‘dangerous instrumentality,’ 450 A2d at 519, and an ‘enhanced hazard.’ 450 A2d 520. See also, Restatement (Second) Torts § 307, ‘It is negligence to use an instrumentality, whether a human being or a thing, which the actor knows or should know to be so incompetent, inappropriate, or defective that its use involves an unreasonable risk of harm to others.’ ”
We should decline plaintiffs invitation. We cannot take judicial notice what people should know about the effect of these drugs. We cannot supplement the record with our own suppositions. Plaintiff selected the words for her pleading. She alleged Barmon was negligent or reckless in ingesting LSD when he knew or should have known it would affect his behavior. There is some question, but there is sufficient evidence to submit to a jury that defendant indeed mistakenly ingested LSD, but there is no evidence that he knew he ingested LSD. Further, there is nothing in the record to support the allegation that defendant knew or should have known that ingesting the LSD could result in such aberrant behavior as rape and sexual abuse. As stated, he did not know he ingested LSD. If he did not know that he took LSD, how could he know or should have known that it would affect his behavior? Even if we construe plaintiffs pleading in a most liberal fashion in order to conform the pleading to the “evidence,” we might convert the allegation to “he ingested LSD believing it was chocolate mescaline.” But Barmon admitted he did not know what, if any, behavior chocolate mescaline would produce. Certainly we are not experts on what people should or should not know about the effects of taking chocolate mescaline. Certainly there is no evidence that Barmon or anyone should have known that ingesting small amounts of chocolate mescaline would possibly affect his behavior to a degree where he would rape and sexually abuse someone. I doubt that there *454is any literature or study that would inform Barmon or anyone else that such behavior should be a foreseeable result of taking chocolate mescaline. The Fazzolari trilogy2 on foreseeability has to stop somewhere. This is an appropriate case to say that Barmon’s aberrant conduct was not foreseeable as a matter of law.
Defendant, being the movingparty, had an obligation to show from the record that Barmon did not know or had no reason to know that the ingestion of either LSD or chocolate mescaline would affect Barmon’s behavior in some foreseeable fashion. The defendant has done this.
In Fazzolari v. Portland School Dist. No. 1J, 303 Or 1, 17, 734 P2d 1326 (1987), Linde, J., wrote:
“[T]he issue of liability for harm actually resulting from defendant’s conduct properly depends on whether that conduct unreasonably created a foreseeable risk to a protected interest of the kinds of harm that befell the plaintiff. The role of the court is what it ordinarily is in cases involving the evaluation of particular situations under broad and precise standards: to determine whether upon the facts alleged or the evidence presented no reasonable factfinder could decide one or more elements of liability for one or the other party. * * *”
Dissecting this formulation, the harm must be a foreseeable result of defendant’s conduct. Barmon’s ultimate aberrant conduct is certainly graphic, but there must be a nexus between the alleged conduct and the ultimate harm. That nexus is that the conduct in ingesting the drug unreasonably created a foreseeable risk to a protected interest (the plaintiffs right of personal integrity) of the kinds of harm that befell the plaintiff. Aside from the mismatch of pleading and proof as outlined above, a prime issue still remains: was the harm foreseeable?
In the Fazzolari trilogy, this court strove valiantly to reject the legal cliche of “duty” and substituted the legal word “foreseeability.” But, if misapplied, “foreseeability” gives lawyers and judges no better guidance than we had before. The substitution of one legal word for another which is just as *455likely to prevent an examination of the facts of each case is not what we had in mind. See Dahl v. BMW, 304 Or 558, 564, 748 P2d 77 (1988).
In Donaca v. Curry Co., 303 Or 30, 33-34, 734 P2d 1339 (1987), this court quoted from Prosser, Pfalsgraf Revisited, 52 Mich L Rev 1, 15 (1953), that “[d]uty is only a word with which we state our conclusion that there is or is not a liability; it necessarily begs the essential question.” But isn’t “foreseeability,” if misapplied, a word that does exactly the same thing? In a summary judgment context, foreseeability creates a question of law whether or not to submit an empirical fact pattern to a trier of fact.
Tort law is weighted down with legal words that are most difficult to explain. Even before this case reached us, the Court of Appeals, with absolutely no analysis, states that the issue of causation is clearly for the jury. However, the causation in this case is not so simplistic. The majority’s resolution of this case mirrors the Court of Appeals’ in that it too illustrates the problems associated with allowing a legal formula to be substituted for real legal analysis of the facts. The majority and concurring opinions struggle with the phrase respondeat superior, trying to separate the inseparable in a case such as this when an employee is his own employer and vice versa. In doing so, the majority ignores the reasonable-person test as to what an individual objectively or subjectively knows or should know about the effect of mind-altering drugs. Even to reach the causation issue, the majority resorts gratuitously to amending the plaintiffs complaint for the first time on appeal (ignoring statutory pleading and practice set forth in ORCP 23) and assumes foreseeability without mentioning it as a conduit in its effort to dump whatever fact issue might be in the case into the lap of some future jury.
The intent of the Fazzolari trilogy was to encourage courts and juries to examine each case on its own facts rather than having a court apply the Procrustean bed of “the law” to avoid the facts. We should follow that same purpose here, even if it leads to a summary judgment rather than a jury trial. The facts of this particular case should not be stretched to fit into the majority’s idea of what would make a sufficient case for the jury.
The majority seems to be saying that the taking of *456any hallucinogenic drug (which need not be identified) that predictably will alter behavior, no matter how aberrant that behavior may be, raises a fact issue of foreseeability. What special insight or information do the judges joining the majority possess that leads them to such an unsupported conclusion? Is the majority taking judicial notice of the foreseeability of the taking of any hallucinogenic drug? If so, it has at least some responsibility to spell out upon what physiological, psychological or scientific study it bases its conclusion. The majority cannot rely on the record. The summary judgment evidence closet is bare on this issue. Appellate judges simply cannot, via ipse dixit, create knowledge of such matters out of intuition. I suggest that that is exactly what the majority has done, apparently saying, “we have an intuitive belief that, if a person takes any hallucinogenic drug knowing that the drug will alter behavior to some degree a question of foreseeability for a jury arises as to any resulting harm.”
I shudder to think of the task that the majority has foisted back on a trial judge on remand of this case. First, the trial judge must address the pleading question. Plaintiffs allegation as it stands would survive an ORCP 21A. motion. There is nothing wrong with the allegation, but, as iterated and reiterated, plaintiffs evidence does not match the allegation. Therefore, the trial judge must allow an amendment to the pleadings for the case to make any possible sense to the jury. This the judge should do. ORCP 23B.
Let us assume that the plaintiff is allowed to amend her allegation to read that Barmon “took an hallucinogenic drug when he knew the drug would affect his behavior.” Then the trial judge must instruct the jury that, in order for Construction 80 to be held responsible, the plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Barmon must have taken the drug in the course of his employment to promote the business interest of the company. Further, the judge must instruct the jury that it must find on the causation issue that Barmon was still under the influence of the hallucinogenic drug when he committed the sexual assault. Finally, the trial judge must instruct the jury that it must find by a preponderance of the evidence that when Barmon took the hallucinogenic drug that he knew or should have known that, by ingesting the drug, a reasonable person should reasonably foresee the type of harm done to plaintiff.
*457Now comes the challenge — how is the trial judge to define foreseeability to the jury. Does simply mentioning the word discharge the court’s responsibility? Should the question be whether a reasonable person could foresee the chain of events culminating in plaintiffs damage? If so, what proof can plaintiff possibly present to the jury that will bridge the foreseeability gap between ingesting an unknown hallucinogenic drug and the conduct of raping and sexually assaulting plaintiff? That chain has a gaping hole in it at this time at the summary judgment level and it is most difficult to perceive how that hole can be plugged with any form of evidence at trial. If it isn’t, the trial judge has no business submitting the foreseeability issue to the jury, which brings me to my conclusion.
The defendant corporation challenged the foreseeability issue, and the Court of Appeals recognized that issue, stating, “We have to determine whether there are triable issues of fact about whether Barmon’s ingesting the hallucinogenic matter was within the scope of his employment and was part of the chain of causation that led to plaintiff’s injury. ” Chesterman v. Barmon, 82 Or App 1, 5-6, 727 P2d 130 (1986) (emphasis added). I conclude where I started, that there is not a small gap but an insurmountable gap in lack of evidence in the chain of causation and that the gap cannot be closed by resorting to a word of art as an excuse to use the jury as a dumping ground for a cognitively solvable issue that can and should be decided by the court. The causal facts that have been presented in this summary judgment proceeding are so deficient that we can say as a matter of law that defendant’s responsibility ends here.
The decision of the Court of Appeals on the vicarious liability issue should be reversed. The judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.
Campbell, J., joins in this dissent.

 No one on this court believes that plaintiffs second allegation of negligence is backed by the record:
“2. Entering plaintiffs home after ingesting the LSD when he knew or should have known he would be unable to control his behavior or accurately perceive that he was subjecting the plaintiff to harmful conduct.”

 Fazzolari v. Portland School Dist. No. 1J, 303 Or 1, 734 P2d 1326 (1987); Kimbler v. Stillwell, 303 Or 23, 734 P2d 1344 (1987); Donaca v. Curry Co., 303 Or 30, 734 P2d 1339 (1987).