Can a company be held liable if an employee has a car accident due to drunk driving while on business travel?

It is possible, but the outcome would depend on several factors, so it is important to understand both the concept of “respondeat superior” and the concept of “vicarious liability.”

Respondeat superior is a legal doctrine that states that, in many circumstances, an employer is responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their employment.

Respondeat superior is based on the concept of vicarious liability. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, vicarious liability is “the imposition of liability on one person for the actionable conduct of another, based solely on the relationship between the two persons.”

In an employment context, the vicarious liability of an employer is liability that derives from acts employees perform while working on behalf of the employer. The term is often used in personal injury cases in which an employee injures another person while on the job. The employer may be responsible to the party harmed, even though the employer was without direct fault.

Under a vicarious liability theory, an employer may be held liable only for an act of the employee that is committed within the “scope of employment.” However, courts in recent years have defined scope of employment quite broadly. For example, even if an employee disobeys the employer’s explicit instructions and, as a result, causes injury, as long as the injury occurred while the employee was working, the employer may be found liable.

Issues of employer liability may also arise when an employee commits an intentional act; for example, a sales person strikes a customer during an argument, or a teacher engages in sexual relations with a minor student. Originally, the law denied recovery from the employer in most of these cases, unless it could be shown that the intentional act was in the scope of employment, in the sense that the employee was attempting to directly advance the business of the employer with the intentional act. But in recent years, the courts in many states have departed from the original definition of scope of employment. Sometimes the basis for liability in these cases is the fact that the employer places the victim under the power and control of the employee-perpetrator. Sometimes the basis for liability rests on the fact that misconduct of this kind is a “known hazard” of the particular kind of employment.

To determine whether the organization would be held liable, the courts look at whether the employee was acting in the scope of employment. If the employee was on his or her way to a sales meeting when the accident occurred, the employer could possibly be held liable. In addition, it is possible the employer could be sued for negligent hiring if, for example, the employee had a history of drunk driving and the employer failed to take this information into account when allowing the employee to drive a car on company business.