Court Opinion

ID: 9662921
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:23:04.551355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:15.136356
License: Public Domain

KOEHLER, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully and regretfully dissent. This is one of those cases where all the sympathies are with the Appellee. On a purely emotional basis, Appellant may not deserve “the time of day” in this appeal, but we are here to decide the points of error brought to us, in accordance with the law, as dispassionately as possible.
As found by the jury, Appellant may have been negligent, yes even grossly negligent, in its hiring practices generally and in hiring Ken Hopper in particular. Hopper’s actions, taken to be true as a result of the jury finding, were unconscionable and his hiring by Appellant without an adequate background check was undoubtedly a cause-in-fact of Appellee’s injuries and damages. However, cause-in-fact is only a part of a necessary proximate cause finding in order to establish liability in both ordinary and gross negligence cases. A finding of proximate cause requires both (1) cause-in-fact, and (2) foreseeability. Farley v. M.M. Cattle Company, 529 S.W.2d 751 (Tex.1975); Bell v. Fore, 419 *501S.W.2d 686, 690 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1967), aff'd sub nom., Bell v. Campbell, 434 S.W.2d 117 (Tex.1968); Texas American Bank v. Boggess, 673 S.W.2d 398 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1984, writ dism. by agr.).
The majority attempts to establish the necessary foreseeability through the licensing requirements of the Licensed Vocational Nurses Act, Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 4528c, sec. 10(a) (Vernon Supp.1990), which permits but does not require the board of examiners to refuse to issue or renew a license, or to revoke a license, of anyone who has been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude. The majority concludes that Hopper’s past numerous theft (hot check) convictions, being crimes involving moral turpitude, should have given Appellant notice of Hopper’s propensity to commit other crimes involving moral turpitude, such as assaulting elderly women visitors to the nursing home. Conceding that theft by check is a crime involving moral turpitude, simple assault clearly is not. Handy v. State, 136 Tex.Crim. 208, 126 S.W.2d 30 (1938).
The analogy of this negligent hiring case to a negligent entrustment of automobile case by the majority is misplaced. The owner who negligently entrusted his automobile to an unlicensed driver would not be liable, at least on that theory, for assaultive injuries to a customer or manager of a store which the driver had entered to make a purchase unless the owner knew or should have known that the driver had a propensity for violence. Whether Hopper was properly licensed by Texas as an LVN or whether he had been convicted on a number of hot check charges would tell his employer, the Appellant, nothing about the possibility that he might assault someone who was trying to visit a patient. The majority is relying on cause-in-fact, not foreseeability.
The test for foreseeability is whether an employer of ordinary prudence and intelligence should have anticipated the danger to others by its negligence. Clark v. Waggoner, 452 S.W.2d 437, 440 (Tex.1970). In this case, the “danger” was an assault by Hopper on a visitor, and the “negligence was the employer’s failure to verify Hopper’s Texas LVN license or to discover his past theft convictions. There is no evidence in the record that Hopper had an aggressive nature, had been involved in any altercations at the nursing home or in previous employment, or had a propensity for violence. “A prior or remote cause cannot be made the basis for an action for damages if it [did] nothing more than furnish the condition or give rise to the occasion which [made] the injury possible, if such injury is the result of some other cause which reasonable minds would not have anticipated, even though the injury would not have occurred but for such condition.” [Emphasis Added.] Bell, 419 S.W.2d at 691.
Several jurisdictions have addressed the proximate cause question in the negligent hiring context and have concluded that the foreseeability prong is not satisfied unless the background of the employee reasonably indicated a vicious or violent behavior likely to result in the type of injury sustained by the plaintiff. Hersh v. Kentfield Builders, Inc., 385 Mich. 410, 189 N.W.2d 286 (1971); Lacy v. District of Columbia, 424 A.2d 317 (D.C.App.1980). In Lacy, the court said that negligence in hiring requires foreseeability of the specific type of harm done to plaintiff. 424 A.2d at 323. In that case it was a janitor who sexually assaulted a child at school. Although the propensities of the employee for sexual assault did not have to be shown by acts as specific as rape, the court said, it did require some indication of assaultive behavior in general. See also Coath v. Jones, 277 Pa.Super. 479, 419 A.2d 1249, 1250 (1980); Welsh Manufacturing Division of Textron, Inc. v. Pinkerton’s, Inc., 474 A.2d 436 (R.I.1984); F & T Company v. Woods, 92 N.M. 697, 594 P.2d 745 (1979) (“It is not enough that plaintiff prove that defendant was negligent in hiring or retaining Sanders. In addition, plaintiff must prove that the negligent hiring or retention of Sanders was the proximate cause of the rape.” 594 P.2d at 747-748); Williams v. Wiewel, 36 Ill. App.3d 478, 344 N.E.2d 34 (Ill.App.Ct. [4th Dist] 1976, cert. den.) [quoting Restatement *502(Second) of Torts, sec. 448 (1965) ]; Ponticas v. K.M.S. Investments, 331 N.W.2d 907 (Minn.1983) (“Liability is predicated on the negligence of an employer in placing a person with known propensities, or propensities which should have been discovered by reasonable investigation, in an employment position in which, because of the circumstances of the employment, it should have been foreseeable that the hired individual posed a threat of injury to others.” 331 N.W.2d at 911).
This court recently addressed a foreseeability question in Williams v. Sun Valley Hospital, 723 S.W.2d 783 (Tex.App.—El Paso 1987, writ ref’d n.r.e.), a case involving a patient who had voluntarily committed himself to a local mental hospital. He escaped from the hospital and killed himself by jumping in front of a car on a busy street. The driver of the car sued the hospital for her injuries caused by the impact of the body. This Court held, in effect, that the driver of the car was not a foreseeable victim of any negligence on the part of the hospital in allowing the patient to escape.
In another case not involving negligent hiring but with operative facts somewhat analagous to the instant case, Kane v. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, 98 Cal.App.3rd 350, 159 Cal.Rptr. 446 (Cal.Ct.App. [1st Dist.] 1979), plaintiff sued the bonding company, Hartford, for damages arising out of a rape at a hospital by an employee of a window washing company that had been contracted to wash the hospital windows. It was undisputed that the company would not have hired the employee to work at the hospital if he had not been bonded. Hartford had previously performed background checks on all of the persons it bonded but it had discontinued this practice several months before. It was also undisputed that if Hartford had performed the check, it would have found a criminal history of convictions for burglary, auto theft and robbery (which the court termed “property-related crimes”). Hartford would not have bonded the employee if it had known of the convictions. The Court found causation-in-fact because the employee would not have been working at the hospital at the time of the rape if Hartford had discovered the crimes. The Court said Hartford had no liability because the foreseeable risk, if any, was for property-related crimes and not crimes against persons. “Least of all did Hartford have any indication that Williams’ criminal impulses had, or would, come to focus on the plaintiff.” 159 Cal.Rptr. at 449.
Under the facts of this case, there is no proximate cause between Appellant’s negligent hiring and Appellee’s injuries as a matter of law. I would sustain Point of Error No. One which would require a reversal and rendering.