An incarcerated woman was raped by her jailor. The Michigan Supreme Court Republican-nominated majority says in this decision there is no civil rights violation for which the jailor’s employer is liable!
Two of the justices in the majority are up for re-election in November 2012 – Stephen Markman and Brian Zahra. Remember those names.They will have incumbent next to their names on the ballot next year.
This article is from Gongwer News Service.
COURT: SHERIFF NOT LIABLE FOR INMATE RAPE
Public service agencies can only be held liable for the criminal acts of their employees if those acts were within the course of their duties or were reasonably foreseeable by their employer, a split Supreme Court ruled Friday.
Tara Hamed was raped by former Wayne County Sheriff’s Deputy Reginald Johnson while she was in a Wayne County jail. She sued Mr. Johnson, Wayne County and the sheriff’s department, alleging Mr. Johnson violated her civil rights. Because it happened while he was overseeing her in jail, she argued the public agencies were also liable for Mr. Johnson’s actions.
The Supreme Court, upholding Wayne Circuit Court and overturning the Court of Appeals (Hamed v. Wayne County, SC docket No. 139505), ruled the agencies were not responsible for Mr. Johnson’s actions because they were not part of his employment and were not foreseeable. And Justice Mary Beth Kelly, joined by Chief Justice Robert Young Jr., Justice Stephen Markman, and Justice Brian Zahra, said a 1996 case that the employer was responsible for a rape committed by a supervisor if the supervisor used that position to accomplish the rape (Champion v. Nation Wide Security Incorporated) was wrong and so overruled.
Justice Mary Beth Kelly wrote the opinion.
The opinion was one of the few major cases yet to be decided as the court wraps up its 2010-11 term, which concludes Sunday. Expectations that the court would avoid needing the weekend to issue its final opinions faded Friday as it released one case at 10:15 p.m. with the last opinion set to be issued Saturday or Sunday. That case involves a question of governmental immunity on Department of Natural Resources property.
Ms. Kelly said employers are held responsible for the actions of their employees in the course of their work. But she said to be considered in the course of work, an action either had to be under the direction of the employer or, if against that direction, at least designed to further the goals of the employer.
“Here, there is no question that Johnson’s sexual assault of plaintiff was beyond the scope of his employment as a deputy sheriff,” she said. “The sexual assault was an independent action accomplished solely in furtherance of Johnson’s own criminal interests.”
The county and the sheriff could also still be held liable if they could reasonably have expected Mr. Johnson to commit the rape. Mr. Johnson did have a record of complaints, but none included sexual assault.
“Viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, this past misconduct put defendants on notice of Johnson’s irresponsible and aggressive tendencies, which, at most, demonstrates that defendants were aware that Johnson had a propensity to disobey work-related protocol and engage in aggressive behavior when provoked,” Ms. Kelly wrote. “Defendants had no actual or constructive knowledge of prior similar criminal sexual misconduct. Even the incident of aggression did not put defendants on reasonable notice that Johnson would sexually assault an inmate; violent actions do not inevitably lead to acts of criminal sexual conduct.”
Ms. Kelly said the Champion case was wrongly decided because it would allow employers to be found liable for events they could not foresee. In that case, a supervisor used his scheduling authority to place the victim in a position where he could rape her. The court in that case found his use of supervisory authority was an exception to the general concept that employers are not liable for unforeseen actions of their employees.
