McAllister v. Graham
287 S.C. 455, 1986 S.C. App. LEXIS 261, 339 S.E.2d 154 (1986)
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Rule of Law:
An employer is not vicariously liable for an employee's torts when the employee is on a personal errand completely detached from their employment. Furthermore, a single, remote DUI conviction is insufficient, on its own, to establish an employer's liability for negligent entrustment of a vehicle.
Facts:
- APAC furnished its employee, Graham, with a company pickup truck to drive between his home and various job sites.
- APAC explicitly instructed Graham never to operate the vehicle for personal use after work hours and never to operate it while under the influence of alcohol, with dismissal as the penalty for violation.
- In 1971, Graham had a prior conviction for driving under the influence (DUI).
- On a Sunday, Graham used the company truck for a personal trip to visit his son at a hospital in Florence, South Carolina.
- At approximately 10:00 p.m. that Sunday night, Graham left the hospital in the company truck to drive to a doughnut shop for coffee.
- While driving to the doughnut shop, Graham's truck collided with a car driven by McAllister.
- Graham was subsequently convicted of DUI for his role in the collision that injured McAllister.
Procedural Posture:
- Plaintiff McAllister filed a personal injury lawsuit against Defendant APAC in a trial court.
- The defendant, APAC, filed a motion for summary judgment.
- The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of APAC.
- The plaintiff, McAllister, appealed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the Court of Appeals of South Carolina.
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Issue:
Is an employer liable for injuries caused by an employee who, while driving a company vehicle drunk on a personal errand, gets into an accident, either under a theory of respondeat superior or negligent entrustment based on a single, remote DUI conviction?
Opinions:
Majority - Gardner, Judge
No. An employer is not liable because the employee was not acting within the scope of his employment when engaged in a purely personal activity, and a single, remote DUI conviction is insufficient, by itself, to establish the employer's requisite knowledge for a negligent entrustment claim. The court rejected the respondeat superior claim, finding that Graham was on a 'lark of his own,' and his actions were purely personal and unrelated to APAC's business. The court also dismissed the apparent authority argument, reasoning that it does not apply to a third-party tort victim who had no reason to rely on the driver's agency. Regarding negligent entrustment, the court applied a three-part test and held that Graham's DUI conviction from nine years prior was too remote in time, by itself, to impute knowledge to APAC that Graham was likely to drive while intoxicated.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the traditional 'scope of employment' limitation on respondeat superior, clarifying that even with a company vehicle, an employee's purely personal deviation severs the employer's liability. More significantly, it establishes a 'remoteness' principle for negligent entrustment claims, creating a higher evidentiary bar for plaintiffs. The ruling implies that a plaintiff cannot rely solely on a stale, isolated incident from an employee's past to prove an employer's current knowledge of unfitness, thereby protecting employers from liability based on outdated information without evidence of a continuing pattern of behavior.
