Court Opinion

ID: 9692632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:59:03.200763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:35.757431
License: Public Domain

MYSE, J.
(dissenting). I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion addressing the issue of the scope of Dr. Connerly's employment. The majority has correctly cited factors enunciated in a variety of cases discussing the scope of employment issue. In doing so it has also exposed a whole line of both federal and state cases unexplained and unexplainable in light of those factors.
While the subjective intent to further the employer's interests is a factor recited as necessary, to find the employee's act in the scope of employment, the courts' decisions in Hibma v. Odegaard, 769 F.2d 1147 (7th Cir. 1985), Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F.2d 1205 (7th Cir. 1984), and State v. Beaudry, 123 Wis. 2d 40, 365 N.W.2d 593 (1985), belie such pronouncements. Neither the police planting a weapon on a victim and falsifying their incident report, as in Bell, nor sheriffs deputies committing a series of burglaries and framing a third party, as in Hibma, can by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as furthering their employers' interests. Yet, in each case, the court determined that this conduct was within the scope of employment and held the employer liable for the acts of its employee. A bartender's acts in gratuitously furnishing his employer's liquor and beer to his friends after hours can also hardly be said to benefit the employer. Yet in Beaudry, this conduct was found to be within the scope of the bartender's employment.
It is our responsibility to reconcile the cases that have addressed this issue so as to provide a clear and understandable scope of employment doctrine. A clear rule is necessary so that all parties, employers, and *680potential victims of employee misconduct may take appropriate steps to protect themselves from loss.
I discern only one way to reconcile the inconsistent and contradictory line of cases on this issue. The Restatement (Second) of Agency, sec. 219(2) (1958), provides:
A master is not subject to liability for the torts of his servants acting outside the scope of their employment unless:
(d) the servant purported to act or speak on behalf of the principal and there was reliance upon apparent authority, or he was aided in accomplishing the tort by the existence of the agency relation. (Emphasis supplied.)
Thus, the Restatement suggests that an exception to the general rule that an employer is not liable for the acts of his employee outside the scope of employment exists when the employer has vested the employee with the unique means or ability to engage in misconduct. While no Wisconsin cases have cited this provision, other courts have applied it where an employee, by virtue of the nature of his position and his employment relationship, was placed in a position where his employment aided him or facilitated him in accomplishing the tor-tious act. See, e.g., North v. Madison Area Ass'n for Retarded Citizens, 844 F.2d 401, 407 (7th Cir. 1988); Hicks v. Gates Rubber Co., 833 F.2d 1406, 1418 (10th Cir. 1987); Sparks v. Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc., 830 F.2d 1554, 1559 (11th Cir. 1987); Graves v. Wayne County, 333 N.W.2d 740, 743 (Mich. App. 1983); McCann v. Michigan Dept. of Mental Health, 247 N.W.2d 521, 524 (Mich. 1976).
*681Whether this doctrine is regarded as an exception to the general scope of employment rule or serves to remove the requirement that the employee intend to benefit the employer's interests at the time he engages in misconduct is irrelevant. The principle that an employer who vests his employee with the unique means to engage in misconduct, resulting in injury to another, is sufficient to impose liability upon the employer.
This rule is narrow in its application and does not operate to impose general liability upon all employers. For example, I do not suggest that a city is liable for all of the misconduct of its policemen merely because it furnishes them with a uniform, badge, and weapon as symbols of their office. See Barnes v. Costle, 561 F.2d 983, 996 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (MacKinnon, J., concurring). However, a police officer's employer who places the officer in a jewelry store, where the officer is given the combination to the jewelry store's safe in an effort to apprehend a potential burglar, would be liable if the officer uses this special knowledge or opportunity to commit criminal acts even though he acts only to benefit himself. Id.
I reach this conclusion for a variety of reasons. First, it seems to accurately reflect the law in Wisconsin even though such a principle has not been articulated. There is no other way to explain the results in Bell, Hibma, or Beaudry, and reconcile them with other Wisconsin cases unless there is either an exception to the general rule of nonliability of the employer for the acts of his employee done outside the scope of his employment, or the requirement that the employee intend to serve his employer's interest does not exist when special circumstances are created by the employer. Furthermore, this principle is also in accord with the Restatement position.
*682Second, the scope of employment issue arises in a variety of different settings, and I question the validity of defining scope of employment differently depending on the context in which the issue arises. For example, in the detour versus deviation cases, an employer is not liable for an employee's acts during a substantial detour for purely personal reasons. Finsland v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 57 Wis. 2d 267, 273-74, 204 N.W.2d 1, 4-5 (1973). Thus, a minor detour, even for purely personal reasons, would not render the employee's acts outside the scope of employment. In contrast, under the majority's holding, as long as the employee acts for purely personal reasons and without intending to benefit the employer, his actions are outside the scope of employment.
Another example is in sexual harassment cases, where liability may be imposed on the employer for an employee's act of harassing another employee. It is certainly true that no employer's interests are being served when a supervisor sexually harasses another employee. But even in cases where the plaintiff proceeds on a theory that the supervisor's actions create a "hostile environment," and so are discriminatory, the Supreme Court has held that the absence of notice to an employer does not necessarily insulate^ that employer from liability. Meritor Savings Bank FSB v. Vinson, 106 S. Ct. 2399 (1986). In a four-justice concurrence, Justice Marshall urges that:
[T]he act of a supervisory employee or agent [should be] imputed to the employer. Thus, for example, when a supervisor discriminatorily fires or refuses to promote a black employee, that act is, without more, considered the act of the employer. The courts do not stop to consider whether . . . the supervisor had actual authority to act as he did.
*683Id. at 2410 (Marshall, J., concurring) (footnote omitted).
This liability extends to the employer because the supervisor has apparent authority to behave in a discriminatory manner toward the employees he or she supervises. See id. Courts have upheld employer liability in these cases even though defendants have argued that "sexual harassment is an intentional act done for private gratification." Horn v. Duke Homes, 755 F.2d 599, 604 (7th Cir. 1985). While the Horn court noted that Title VII supports a public policy determination of strict employer liability in cases of sexual discrimination, it also noted in dicta that the common-law of agency could be seen to support such a determination, since "by delegating power to [the supervisor] the ’employer' and [the supervisor] essentially merged; as long as the tort complained of was caused by the exercise of his supervisory power, [he] should be deemed acting within the scope of his employment, and the employer should be held liable for the tort." Id. at 605.
Liability imputed to the employer for the employee's negligent or intentional misconduct in both the deviation and the sexual harassment settings is the result of social policy considerations. Courts have concluded that society's interests are best served by not insulating the employer from liability for the acts of the employee merely because the employee is engaged in a minor deviation or deliberate acts of sexual harassment for "purely personal" reasons. In those cases, we would not accept an employer's argument that it is not liable for his employee's acts of speeding because he was not permitted to speed under the employer's rules, nor would we permit an employer to escape liability by claiming that sexual harassment is against company rules. These are but two examples where liability is imposed on the employer, not because the employer benefited from the *684employee's acts of negligence or misconduct, but because the employer had the power to vest the employee with the unique opportunity or means to engage in such misconduct.
This rule is consistent with the requirements of public policy and the needs of this state's citizens. An employer can by prudent hiring practices and the bonding of employees protect against personal loss. The imposition of liability on an employer in a limited way based upon the employer's affirmative conduct of vesting his employee with special power, authority, or opportunity to commit the misconduct is preferable to potentially placing the burden of the loss on an innocent victim who has been victimized because the employer has vested his employee with this unique means or opportunity.
Dr. Connerly was vested by his employer with the ability to render medical treatment to patients of the clinic, including clinic employees. His decision to engage in sexual therapy for which he was to some extent compensated by the patient's health insurer permitted him to engage in sexual conduct by virtue of the patient's dependent status in the therapist-patient relationship. That his intimate conversations and sexual touchings ultimately led to sexual intercourse with a patient seems a natural and known danger to the employer, so that it must either protect itself by limiting the availability of such therapy through the clinic or adequately supervising the therapist's conduct to protect against such events.
In the absence of taking these affirmative steps and because the therapist-patient relationship is so uniquely vulnerable to such overreachings, it is appropriate that the employer may be found liable for Dr. Connerly's misconduct. At the very least, the facts of this case raise *685a jury question involving these issues, and an appropriate instruction should he given to the jury on the issue of scope of employment so that the jury fully understands that in the absence of a finding that Dr. Connerly's acts were intended to further his employer's best interests, liability on the part of the employer may nonetheless result if the jury finds Dr. Connerly's misconduct is uniquely attributable to his role as an employee of the clinic.