Court Opinion

ID: 9628420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:20:08.981821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:02.274902
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
 I concur in the views of the majority on the late-claim application under the Tort Claims Act. However, I dissent from their conclusion on the respondeat superior doctrine.
It is my view that the Court of Appeal was entirely correct in its analysis of plaintiffs’ claim against the school district. Therefore I adopt as my own the respondeat superior discussion in the opinion by Presiding Justice Racanelli for the Court of Appeal: “Under the respondeat superior doctrine, an employer’s liability extends to torts of an employee committed within the scope of his employment. [Citation.] This includes willful and malicious torts as well as negligence. [Citation.]” (Martinez v. Hagopian (1986) 182 Cal.App.3d 1223, 1227 [227 Cal.Rptr. 763].)
“The determination as to whether an employee committed a tort during the course of his employment turns on whether T) the act performed was either required or “incident to his duties” [citation], or 2) the employee’s misconduct could be reasonably foreseen by the employer in any event [citations].’ [Citation.] The employee’s actions need only fall within the range of actions covered by either part of this two-pronged test for the employer to be held liable.” (Martinez, supra, 182 Cal.App.3d at p. 1228.)
Relying on White v. County of Orange (1985) 166 Cal.App.3d 566 [212 Cal.Rptr. 493], appellants argue that the teacher’s misconduct occurring within the course and scope of his employment imposes vicarious liability upon the public entity for such misconduct. In contrast, respondent relies on Alma W. v. Oakland Unified School Dist. (1981) 123 Cal.App.3d 133 [176 Cal.Rptr. 287] and Rita M. v. Roman Catholic Archbishop (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 1453 [232 Cal.Rptr. 685], to argue that sexual molestation of students is not a part of a teacher’s duties so as to fasten liability upon the employer district.
White involved an action by a woman against a deputy sheriff who kidnapped her while he was on patrol in uniform in a marked patrol car. In reversing a summary judgment in favor of the county, the court stated that the employer is responsible for acts done during the exercise of the employee’s authority. It is noteworthy that the plaintiff in White claimed she would not have stopped her car had it not been for the deputy’s use of his apparent *454authority by activating the flashing lights of his patrol car. (White v. County of Orange, supra, 166 Cal.App.3d at pp. 571-572.)
Alma W. involved the sexual molestation of an 11-year-old child by a school custodian in the latter’s office. The court affirmed a judgment on a demurrer in favor of the employer, stating that the employee’s actions were neither foreseeable nor an incident of his employment. White distinguished Alma W. on the basis that the wrongful act did not flow from the exercise of the employee’s duties notwithstanding that the assault took place during working hours in the custodian’s office. (White v. County of Orange, supra, 166 Cal.App.3d at p. 571.)
Rita M. involved a complaint by a 16-year-old girl who was seduced by several of her parish priests. Citing Alma W, the court stated: “It would defy every notion of logic and fairness to say that sexual activity between a priest and a parishioner is characteristic of the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church.” (Rita M. v. Roman Catholic Archbishop, supra, 187 Cal.App.3d at p. 1461.) The court concluded that sexual activity with a parishioner was not incidental to priestly duties or reasonably foreseeable as an outgrowth of these duties. However, the opinion failed to discuss the salient fact that the priests obtained the child’s silence by informing her the sex acts were ethically and religiously permissible. (Id., at pp. 1456-1457.)
[I] conclude Rita M. and Alma W. are factually dissimilar from the instant case. There, neither the custodian nor the priests had any actual authority over their victims and did not accomplish the assaults through the official exercise of their job-related duties. The distinguishing feature in White is that the assault arose out of the deputy’s abuse of his official authority and was, therefore, incident to his duties. In Alma W., the assault was completely unrelated to the performance of the custodian’s duties. Although Rita M. falls somewhere between White and Alma W„ [I] conclude that the sexual assaults in Rita M. did not arise out of the priests’ exercise of job-related authority over the plaintiff.
The case at bench is in analytical symmetry with White. Here, under the charging allegations of the third amended complaint—which we must accept as true for purposes of review (Molien v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (1980) 27 Cal.3d 916, 919 [167 Cal.Rptr. 831, 616 P.2d 813, 16 A.L.R.4th 518]—it is alleged that the teacher engaged the child in an officially sanctioned instructional work experience program which involved extracurricular work at the teacher’s home. It was there, while the minor was participating in the program by correcting papers, that the alleged sexual conduct took place. The teacher explained to the child that the sexual conduct was a part of his role as teacher and was designed to help the student with his *455problems. The complaint also alleged that the acts took place solely because of the existence of the relationship of teacher and pupil.
As in White, the teacher, by virtue of the exercise of his official authority, was able to perpetrate the sexual assault. That is, through the use of his authority to administer grades, to assign extracurricular work projects, and, significantly, by utilizing the school-approved work experience program, the teacher procured the student’s presence in his home facilitating the opportunity for the assault. In concluding that such pleaded facts would be clearly incident to the teacher’s exercise of his official duties, we [should] focus not on whether the school teacher’s sexual activity with a student is either “characteristic” or foreseeable, but rather on whether the assault arose out of the exercise of job-created authority over the plaintiff student. It was, therefore, error to sustain the demurrer as to appellants’ respondeat superior theory. [End of Court of Appeal opinion, parallel citations omitted, fn. omitted.]
I would affirm the Court of Appeal judgment in its entirety.