Montague v. Amn Healthcare, Inc.
168 Cal. Rptr. 3d 123, 223 Cal. App. 4th 1515, 79 Cal. Comp. Cases 388 (2014)
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Rule of Law:
An employer is not vicariously liable for an employee's intentional tort when the act is a substantial deviation from their duties for personal purposes and is not a foreseeable consequence of the business enterprise.
Facts:
- AMN Healthcare, Inc., doing business as Nursefinders, is a staffing company that hired Theresa Drummond as a medical assistant.
- Nursefinders assigned Drummond to work at a Kaiser facility, where Sara Montague also worked as a medical assistant.
- Weeks or months before the main incident, Drummond and Montague had minor work-related disagreements over stocking rooms and misplaced lab slips.
- Montague did not consider the disagreements serious enough to report to a supervisor.
- Drummond found carbolic acid in a Kaiser examination room and intentionally poured it into Montague’s water bottle.
- Montague drank from the water bottle, causing her tongue and throat to burn and inducing vomiting.
Procedural Posture:
- Sara Montague and her husband sued Theresa Drummond and Nursefinders in a state trial court.
- The complaint against Nursefinders alleged causes of action for negligence and vicarious liability under a theory of respondeat superior.
- Nursefinders filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing Drummond acted outside the scope of her employment.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for Nursefinders, primarily on the grounds that Drummond was a 'special employee' of Kaiser.
- A final judgment was entered in favor of Nursefinders.
- Montague, as the appellant, appealed the judgment to the intermediate court of appeal, with Nursefinders as the respondent.
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Issue:
Does an employee's intentional act of poisoning a coworker, motivated by personal animosity stemming from minor, past work-related disagreements, fall within the scope of employment for purposes of holding the employer vicariously liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior?
Opinions:
Majority - McIntyre, J.
No. An employee's act of intentionally poisoning a coworker does not fall within the scope of employment for vicarious liability purposes when it is highly unusual, startling, and motivated by personal malice rather than being an outgrowth of the employment. For an employer to be held liable for an employee's intentional tort, the act must have a causal nexus to the employee's work, meaning it is either required by or incidental to their duties, or it is a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the employer's business. In this case, Drummond's act of poisoning Montague was a substantial deviation from her duties as a medical assistant for purely personal purposes. The prior work disagreements were minor and occurred weeks earlier, failing to establish that the poisoning was 'engendered by the employment' rather than stemming from personal animosity. The court found that simply bringing the tortfeasor and victim together is not enough; the conduct itself was so unusual and startling that it would be unfair to include the resulting loss among the costs of the employer's business.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the boundaries of the respondeat superior doctrine, particularly concerning intentional torts. It clarifies that 'foreseeability' in this context is not about what is merely possible, but what is not so 'unusual or startling' as to make liability unfair. The case is significant for staffing agencies, as it shows that their liability is not absolute; they are not responsible for personal, criminal acts of their placed employees that lack a direct causal nexus to the work itself. This ruling limits the expansion of vicarious liability by distinguishing between torts that arise from the nature of the work and those that are purely personal vendettas occurring at the workplace.
