John R. v. Oakland Unified School District
769 P.2d 948, 48 Cal. 3d 438, 256 Cal. Rptr. 766 (1989)
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Rule of Law:
Under the doctrine of respondeat superior, an employer is not vicariously liable for an employee's sexual assault, as such personal, criminal misconduct is too attenuated from the employer's enterprise to be considered a risk for which the employer should bear the cost.
Facts:
- John R., a 14-year-old student at a junior high school in the Oakland Unified School District, was invited by his mathematics teacher to join a school-sanctioned, extracurricular work-experience program.
- The district authorized students to perform program-related work at teachers' homes as an option.
- The teacher required John to come to his apartment to assist with tasks like correcting papers.
- Over the course of many sessions at the apartment, the teacher used his position as a tutor and counselor to develop a close relationship with John.
- The teacher told John that engaging in sexual acts was a constructive part of their teacher-student relationship and threatened John with failing grades if he did not comply.
- In February 1981, at his apartment, the teacher pressured John into performing sexual acts, including oral copulation and anal intercourse.
- After the assault, the teacher threatened to retaliate against John if he revealed what had happened.
Procedural Posture:
- John R.'s parents, on his behalf, sued the teacher and the Oakland Unified School District in a California trial court.
- The complaint alleged, among other things, that the district was vicariously liable for the teacher's acts under the doctrine of respondeat superior.
- The trial court sustained the district's demurrer to the vicarious liability claims, thereby dismissing those causes of action against the district.
- The case proceeded to trial against the district on claims of its own direct negligence in hiring and supervision.
- At the outset of trial, the court granted the district's motion for nonsuit on the direct negligence claims based on the plaintiffs' failure to file a timely claim under the California Tort Claims Act.
- Plaintiffs appealed the nonsuit and the earlier dismissal of their vicarious liability claims to the California Court of Appeal.
- The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's judgment, holding that the tort claim was timely and that the district could be held vicariously liable.
- The California Supreme Court granted the school district's petition for review.
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Issue:
Does the doctrine of respondeat superior impose vicarious liability on a school district for a teacher's sexual molestation of a student, when the teacher used his official, job-created authority to facilitate the assault?
Opinions:
Majority - Arguelles, J.
No. The doctrine of respondeat superior does not apply because the underlying policy justifications for imposing vicarious liability are not served in this context. The court's reasoning is based on a three-part policy analysis: 1) Accident Prevention: Holding school districts strictly liable for such acts would deter beneficial extracurricular and one-on-one student-teacher interactions, and the goal of encouraging care is better served by allowing claims for the district's own direct negligence. 2) Victim Compensation: Sexual torts are not a normal range of insurable business risk, and imposing vicarious liability could make insurance scarce and divert necessary funds from classrooms. 3) Risk Spreading: The connection between a teacher's instructional duties and the abuse of authority for personal sexual misconduct is 'simply too attenuated' to be considered a risk allocable to the educational enterprise as a cost of doing business.
Concurring - Mosk, J.
Yes. (Dissenting on the respondeat superior issue). Vicarious liability should be imposed because the teacher's assault arose out of the exercise of his job-created authority over the student. The teacher used his authority to administer grades, assign extracurricular projects, and leverage the school-approved program to procure the student's presence in his home, which facilitated the assault. The focus should not be on whether the act is 'characteristic' of the job, but on whether the employee's official authority enabled the tort, making this case analogous to cases holding employers liable for a police officer's abuse of authority.
Concurring - Eagleson, J.
No. (Concurring on the respondeat superior issue, but dissenting on the timeliness/estoppel issue). It is legally inconsistent for the majority to hold that the district is not vicariously liable for the assault because it is too attenuated from the teacher's employment, while simultaneously holding that the teacher's threats related to that same conduct can be imputed to the district to establish equitable estoppel. If the underlying tort is outside the scope of employment, then threats made to conceal that tort are even more attenuated and cannot be imputed to the employer. Imputing the threats is itself a form of vicarious liability that the majority's core holding rejects.
Concurring - Kaufman, J.
Yes. (Dissenting on the respondeat superior issue). Vicarious liability is appropriate because in the context of this specific enterprise, the teacher's conduct was not so 'unusual or startling' as to make it unfair to include the loss as a cost of the employer's business. The district-sanctioned program, which allowed for unsupervised, one-on-one instruction in a teacher's private home without parental permission, created a foreseeable risk of misconduct. The lack of safeguards virtually guaranteed the teacher could act with impunity, and therefore the policy goals of respondeat superior—spurring prevention and spreading the costs of risks created by the enterprise—are served by imposing liability.
Analysis:
This decision significantly narrows the scope of respondeat superior liability for employers whose employees commit sexual assaults. By rejecting the 'job-created authority' analysis in favor of a stricter policy-based inquiry, the court makes it substantially more difficult for plaintiffs to hold employers vicariously liable for such torts. The ruling effectively shifts the legal battleground from vicarious liability to direct negligence, requiring plaintiffs to prove the employer was independently at fault in hiring, supervising, or retaining the employee. This precedent provides strong protection for employers, particularly public entities like schools, from being held strictly liable for the personal, criminal acts of their employees.
