Is an employer liable when its employee causes a vehicular accident? What if the employee causes the death of another motorist; two motorists? What if the worker was drunk at the time of the accident? What if the employer knew about the employee’s history of alcohol-related traffic infractions? The answer to each question is, it depends. And, that is the precise dilemma the Georgia Court of Appeals addressed not so long ago in the case of Centurion Industries, Inc. v. Naville-Saeger, 834 S.E.2d 875 (Ga. App. 2019)
The Facts
In 2015, A-Lert Construction Services, a Valdosta, Georgia contractor and subsidiary of Centurion Industries (“Centurion”), employed several individuals known as a “road crew” to routinely travel across various states and perform maintenance work for Centurion’s customers. Specifically, Centurion executed a service contract to perform “shutdown” maintenance work for a refinery in Arabi, Louisiana. As part of the road crew, Centurion employed a millwright named Jeremy Carter, and in February 2015, dispatched him to travel to and work at the Arabi job site. For the arrangement, Centurion provided Carter with hourly pay, mileage reimbursement (for his travel from the Valdosta office to the Arabi job site), and a per diem travel allowance. Due to the great distance between Valdosta and Arabi, members of the road crew usually secured temporary housing near Arabi and were expected to remain nearby the job site for the duration of the assignment.
Centurion expected Carter to report to and commence shutdown work at the Arabi job site by early February 2015. Prior to Carter’s arrival in Arabi, he requested and received permission from Centurion to take an upcoming 3-day leave of absence spanning February 25-27, 2015. In his leave request, Carter noted that he needed leave for “court.” In granting Carter’s request, Centurion did not authorize Carter to perform any work tasks during his 3-day leave, explaining that the company would not be providing Carter with any compensation, mileage reimbursement, or travel allowance.
As planned, Carter drove to Arabi in his personal truck to begin work. But, as later learned, Carter had no valid driver’s license. Due to the Arabi refinery’s work requirements, Carter was not permitted to drive a vehicle onto the refinery property and instead carpooled to the job site with another road crew member. Notably, while working in Arabi, Carter advised his field supervisor that he needed to return to Valdosta “because of a DUI refusal in North Carolina.” As would later come to be known, Carter had a history of traffic infractions predated his assignment to Arabi, including his refusal to submit to DUI testing, driving with an open container of alcohol, speeding, and operating with a suspended driver’s license. Notably, Centurion was apparently aware of at least some of Carter’s previous driving infractions but to what extent remains unclear.
On February 25, 2015, on the first day of Carter’s 3-day leave, he drove his personal Ford F-150 from Arabi to Valdosta. He carried no Centurion equipment or other property in his truck. Tragically, upon reaching Lowdnes County, Georgia, Carter attempted to pass a school bus and crashed into an oncoming vehicle carrying two young adults, Kyle Naville and Logan Shelley. Both Naville and Shelley died at the scene. According to law enforcement, Carter had been intoxicated at the time of the crash and was charged with felony first degree vehicular homicide, reckless driving, driving under the influence, driving on a suspended license, improper passing, and possession of an open container. Carter pled guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide.
Naville’s and Shelley’s parents filed wrongful death lawsuits against both Carter, individually, and Centurion, as his employer. For Centurion’s part, the suit alleged that the company was vicariously liable for Carter’s negligence under the theories of respondeat superior (Latin: “let the master answer”) and negligent hiring and retention. During the trial, Carter testified that he had not made any plans visit Centurion’s Valdosta office on the date of the accident because he did not: “See a reason why I would even have needed to stop by there being that I was, you know, off work.” Carter also testified that, on the day of the collision he told his wife that he planned to go to a store and purchase new work boots before coming home.
In defense of the wrongful death claims, Centurion denied any liability for Carter’s role in the accident and sought dismissal on summary judgment. Centurion’s theory was that Carter’s trip from Arabi to Valdosta had been wholly unrelated to his employment and that Carter had not been acting within the scope of his employment at the time of the collision. Upon considering the evidence, the trial court denied summary judgment to Centurion. The company then appealed to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court and held that the company was not liable for Carter’s negligence in causing the wreck. Let’s discuss why.
The Analysis
This one is a deep dive. A longstanding principle of Georgia law is that an employer is generally liable for torts (wrongful acts) committed by an employee: (a) while the employee is under the employer’s direction; or (b) when in furtherance of and within the scope of the employer’s business. Employer liability may be found whether the employee acted intentionally or negligently in the commission of the tort. Therefore, if an employee injures another person, employer liability will turn on whether at the time of the injury the employee was acting within the scope of his employment and on the employer’s business. When an employee causes a wreck while operating the employer’s vehicle – as opposed to his own – there is a rebuttable presumption that the employee was acting within the scope of his employment at the time of the accident. But, it is generally presumed that an employee is engaged in a purely personal matter while he is commuting to and from his worksite.
The Court of Appeals had to decide whether Centurion was indeed liable for Carter’s negligence in causing the deaths of Naville and Shelley. On appeal, the Court noted that at the time of Carter’s February 25 collision he had been driving his own vehicle, and thus there was no legal presumption that Carter had been acting within the scope of his employment. The Court also recognized that because Carter had been on unpaid leave from work to tend to personal affairs between February 25-27, and again, had travelled to Valdosta in his own truck on February 25, Carter was presumed to have been engaged in a personal matter when the accident occurred. In its analysis, the Court had to tap into the wayback machine and give consideration to several prior decisions in other cases, such as a case that had left the unsettled question of whether an employee was in the scope of employment when he caused a collision while driving to dinner in a rental vehicle, paid for by his employer, and during an out-of-town work conference. For sake of comparison, the Centurion Court also considered another decision whereby it had previously held that during an employee’s work travel, related hotel lodging, and driving to and from eating a meal, for example, constituted acts that were connected to his employment, unless the employee stepped aside from his employment for entirely personal reasons unrelated to work.
Again, relying on precedent, the Centurion Court observed that while an employee is generally deemed to be acting only for his own purposes while commuting to and from work, it also recognized an exception to that presumption – specifically, where an employee undertakes a “special mission” at the employer’s direction. Under Georgia’s special mission exception, where an employee, either before or after his customary working hours, is: (a) on his way home after performing, or on the way from his home to perform, some (i) special service or errand or (ii) is discharging some duty incidental to the nature of his employment in the interest of, or under direction of, his employer; (b) and (i) an injury arises en route from the employee’s home to the place where the work is to be performed or (ii) from the place of performance of the work to the employee’s home – such injury is considered to arise out of and in the course of the employee’s employment. To that end, the special mission exception requires that the errand or mission itself be special or uncustomary and be made solely at the employer’s request or direction.
Through additional comparative analysis, the Centurion Court also recognized that Carter in this instance had requested and received time off for a personal matter, since Carter had planned to run errands during his 3-day unpaid leave. Again, drawing from prior appellate decisions, the Court considered its holding in a case where an employee had requested an extended lunch period to find more suitable temporary housing (while he was staying away from his home for work). In assessing that scenario, the Court had held that the employee had not been acting in the course and scope of his employment when he caused a collision while turning into a job site upon his completion of his personal errand. Turning back to the Centurion analysis, the Court surmised that, while Carter’s errand of attending court to have his driver’s license reinstated might have benefited Centurion (if Carter had regained his license), Carter had not been obligated by Centurion to perform the errand or attend court. The Court further noted that having a valid driver’s license was not a requirement of Carter’s job, and there was no evidence that Carter’s employment would have been jeopardized had he not obtained his driver’s license. As the Court pointed out, the prime beneficiary of Carter taking leave and attempting to regain his driver’s license was Carter himself.
Providing a holistic analysis, the Centurion Court also weighed the counter-argument that the very act of Carter working at the Arabi job site was in and of itself a special mission, and that the collision, which occurred as Carter returned to Georgia from Arabi, arose out of and in the course of his employment. However, again drawing from precedent, the Court considered the rationale it had previously reached, specifically where the Court had held in favor of an employer in a case involving a construction employee who had struck and injured a pedestrian while driving his own vehicle to an assigned job site from his home. In that case, the Court concluded that an employee’s daily commute to an assigned job site was not an errand or mission that could be characterized as special or uncustomary. Similarly, the Court considered its previous holding in another decision where it had concluded that an employee’s conduct in traveling to multiple job sites (as his job required) could not be considered a special mission or errand. Applying those holdings to Centurion, the Court reasoned that the fact that Carter worked at the Arabi job site was neither special nor uncustomary, such to invoke the special mission exception.
In reaching its holding, the Court also considered Carter’s prior testimony about his decision to stop and purchase work boots while travelling home from Arabi. The Court stated that an employee cannot unilaterally determine to undertake a special mission (as that decision rests solely with the employer) and found no evidence that Carter had undertaken a special mission to acquire boots at Centurion’s request. The Court further observed that Carter’s intended errand to purchase work boots could have been accomplished at any time and therefore could not be considered a special mission within the context of the exception.
Drawing from these unique facts and established jurisprudence, the Centurion Court recognized the tragedy at hand but ultimately concluded that the Company was not vicariously liable for Carter’s negligence – that at the time of the collision, Carter had been engaged in the purely personal matter of driving to Valdosta while on unpaid leave. Therefore, the Court held that Carter was not acting in the course and scope of his employment when he caused the accident, and thus Centurion was not liable for the deaths of Naville and Shelley.
Similarly, regarding the negligent hiring and retention claims, the Court considered Centurion’s prior knowledge of at least some of Carter’s previous alcohol-related driving infractions. The Court further recognized that, as a matter of Georgia law, an employer has a duty to exercise ordinary care not to hire or retain an employee the employer knew or should have known posed a risk of harm to others, where it is reasonably foreseeable from the employee’s tendencies or propensities that the employee could cause the type of harm sustained (in this instance, an automobile collision while intoxicated). However, as the Court observed, for an employer to be liable for an employee’s automobile accident under the theory of negligent hiring and retention, the evidence must demonstrate that the collision could not have occurred while the employee was simply commuting to work, as opposed to having occurred while the employee was engaged in the employer’s business. Because Carter was not engaged in Centurion’s business when he caused the collision, the Court also held that Centurion was also not liable for negligent hiring and retention.
The Takeaway
As this unfortunate case demonstrates, the question of employer liability for an employee’s negligence is often very fact-intensive and initially uncertain. While supported by legal precedent and sound reasoning, the Court’s decision was a fortuitous one for the employer. With a few alternative facts, its readily conceivable that the decision could have gone the other way, or in many other directions.
For sake of argument, what if the accident had occurred only within minutes of Carter leaving the Arabi job site? What if Carter had consumed alcohol immediately before departing the Arabi job site? What if Carter had been driving a Centurian vehicle at the time of the accident? What if Carter had been incidentally transporting Centurian’s tools and equipment on his trip home to Georgia? What if Carter had stopped at another one of the Centurian’s offices or job sites during transit? What if Centurian had possessed greater knowledge about Carter’s prior alcohol-related traffic infractions? What if the case survived summary judgment and landed before a particularly impassioned jury? The variables are as endless as the potential liabilities.
The key lesson here is that employers should be keenly aware of the risks when employees are operating vehicles on company-related business, even if only tangentially, especially when the employee operates a company-owned vehicle, has a propensity for alcohol-related driving offenses, has a suspended driver’s license, and so forth. While the risk of liability can never be eliminated, there are a myriad of internal safeguards and policies that legal counsel can help implement to mitigate employer liability.
This was a lot to unpack. These circumstances were complicated, intensive, entirely avoidable, and heartbreaking. We have many years of experience handling complex and difficult accident and employer liability cases such as this one. Perhaps we can help your business curtail such incidents through focused workplace training, preventive policies, and other strategic guidance. To learn more about our expertise, contact Agenzia.
(CBLLC.6.2.2026)
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