Employer Responsibility and Liability for Employee Wrongdoing

 

Employer Responsibility for Employee Wrongdoing: Respondeat Superior

The common law doctrine of respondeat superior (“let the master answer”) makes employers directly liable for harm caused by others acting within the scope of their employment. Scope of employment means actions that relate to the kind of work someone was hired to perform; that take place substantially within the workplace during work hours; and that serve, at least partially, the interests of the employer. Let's look at a few examples.

Let’s say a stockperson drops a box that injures a customer. Or, what if the waitperson in a diner spills coffee on a customer? The employer would be liable under respondeat superior because the action related to the kind of work the waitperson was hired to perform, took place at the diner while it was open, and served the interests of the employer.

A contrasting example would be an employee that was hired to deliver appliances to residential homes that gets into an altercation on a delivery and assaults a customer. Let’s say the employer failed to do a thorough background check, where they would have seen that the candidate had a history of charges against them for assault. This would not be considered an example of respondeat superior, as assaulting a customer is not within the scope of duties for the position. Instead, this would be considered negligent hiring.

Let’s look more into negligent hiring in the next section.

Employer Liability for Employee Wrongdoing: Negligent Hiring

Employers sometimes have a duty to others to exercise reasonable care in carrying out certain duties. When that duty is not met and the failure is a proximate cause of harm to others, the party that failed to adhere to its responsibilities may be found negligent. Intent to cause harm is not a requirement. When an employer is negligent in determining who it hires, the liability that runs based on respondeat superior extends to employee actions that lie outside of the scope of duties.

If an employer fails to conduct an adequate background check and hires an unfit employee who uses their position to inflict harm on others, it may be liable based on negligent hiring, which involves foreseeability, knowledge or public policy. There is no single standard for when or how much an employer must do to screen unfit employees. Those set forth above; public policy, foreseeability, and knowledge, apply based on industry standards and public policy concerning a particular type of employment.

As we’ve seen, checking criminal records is an important part of screening candidates. Let’s look more into the details of them in the next section.