A Man on a Mission or a Fool on an Errand – Is an employer liable when an intoxicated employee causes an accident?

Is an employer liable when its employee causes a motor vehicle accident? What if the employee caused the death of another motorist; two motorists? What if the employee was intoxicated at the time of the accident? What if the employer knew in advance the employee’s history of alcohol-related traffic infractions? The answer to each question is: it depends. And, that is the precise dilemma that the Georgia Court of Appeals recently addressed in Centurion Industries, Inc. v. Naville-Saeger.

Facts

In 2015, A-Lert Construction Services, a Valdosta, Georgia contractor and subsidiary of Centurion Industries (“Centurion”), employed several individuals, referred to as a “road crew,” to routinely travel across various states and perform maintenance work for Centurion’s clientele. Specifically, Centurion entered into a service contract to perform “shutdown” maintenance work at a refinery located in Arabi, Louisiana. As part of the road crew, Centurion employed a millwright, Jeremy Carter, and assigned him to travel to and work at the Arabi job site in February 2015. As part of 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 exceptional distance between Valdosta and Arabi, members of the road crew secured temporary housing near Arabi and were expected to remain near the job site for the duration of the assignment.

Centurion expected Carter to report to and commence working at the Arabi job site in 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 through 27, 2015. Carter indicated on his leave request documentation that he necessitated the leave for “court.” In granting Carter’s request, Centurion did not direct Carter to perform any work tasks during the course of his 3-day leave, and further, while on leave, Centurion would not be providing Carter with any compensation, mileage reimbursement, or per diem travel allowance.

As planned, Carter drove to Arabi in his personal vehicle to commence work on February 2, 2015. Coincidently, Carter had no valid driver’s license. Due to the Arabi refinery’s 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 had to take leave to return to Valdosta “because of a DUI refusal in North Carolina.” Further, Carter had a history of violating driving laws preceding his assignment to Arabi, including the refusal to submit to DUI testing, driving with an open container of alcohol, speeding, and driving with a suspended driver’s license. Centurion was apparently aware of at least some of Carter’s previous driving infractions, but to what extent is unclear.

On February 25, 2015, on day one 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 collided with an oncoming vehicle occupied 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. As a result, Carter was charged with multiple offenses, including felony first degree vehicular homicide, reckless driving, driving under the influence, driving on a suspended license, improper passing, and possession of an open container of alcohol. Carter ultimately pled guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide.

As a result of the collision, Naville’s and Shelley’s respective parents lodged two separate wrongful death actions against Carter and Centurion. For Centurion’s part, the lawsuits asserted that the Company was vicariously liable for Carter’s negligence, asserting claims under the theories of respondeat superior (Latin: “let the master answer”) and negligent hiring and retention. During the trial phase, Carter testified that he had made no plans to visit Centurion’s Valdosta office on the date of the collision 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 had told his wife that he planned to go to a store and purchase new work boots before coming home.

In defense of the suits, Centurion denied any liability for Carter’s role in the collision and sought dismissal on summary judgment. Centurion’s central theory was that Carter’s trip from Arabi to Valdosta had been wholly unrelated to his employment, and moreover, that Carter had not been acting within the scope of his employment at the time of the collision. Upon considering the record evidence, the trial court ultimately denied Centurion’s motions. Centurion appealed the trial court decision to the Georgia Court of Appeals. As explained below, on review, the Court of Appeals combined the trial court cases into a single opinion, reversed the trial court, and held in favor of Centurion, finding that the Company was not liable for Carter’s negligence.

Legal Analysis

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) or when in furtherance of and within the scope of the employer’s business. And, employer liability may be found whether the employee acted intentionally or negligently in the commission of the tort. Therefore, if an employee injures another party, 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. In particular, when an employee causes a collision while operating his 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. However, it is generally presumed that an employee is engaged in a purely personal matter while he is commuting to and from his worksite.

In the Centurion case, the Georgia Court of Appeals closely examined whether Centurion was liable for Carter’s negligence in causing the deaths of Naville and Shelley. In so doing, the Court recognized that at the time of Carter’s February 25, 2015, collision he was driving his own vehicle, and thus there was no legal presumption that Carter had been acting within the scope of his employment with Centurium. The Court further observed that, because Carter had been on an unpaid leave from work to tend to a personal matter between February 25-27, 2015, and again had travelled to Valdosta in his own truck on February 25, 2015, Carter was presumed to have been engaged in a personal matter at the time of the collision. As part of its analysis, the Court also considered previous appellate decisions, in particular a precedential case that had left unsettled the question of whether an employee was in the scope of employment when he had caused a collision while driving to dinner in a rental vehicle, paid for by his employer, during an out-of-town work conference. However, for sake of comparison, the Court also considered a prior decision whereby it had concluded that during the course of an employee’s work travel, related hotel lodging and driving to and from eating a meal, for example, constituted acts incident to his employment, unless the employee had stepped aside from his employment for entirely personal reasons unrelated to work.

Further relying on Georgia precedent, the Centurion Court observed that an employee is generally deemed to be acting only for his own purposes while commuting to and from work. Yet, the Court also recognized an exception to that presumption – specifically, where an employee undertakes a “special mission” at the direction of the employer. Under Georgia’s so-called 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, inasmuch as Carter had planned to complete his personal errand(s) during his 3-day unpaid leave. Again, drawing from prior appellate decisions, the Court considered its prior holding in a case whereby 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 particular scenario, the Court had previously held that the employee was not 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 in an attempt to have his driver’s license reinstated might have benefitted Centurion (if Carter had actually 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 primary 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 counterargument that the very act of Carter working at the Arabi job site was in and of itself a special mission, and thus, 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 preceding appellate decisions, the Court considered the rationale it had reached in other cases, 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 previous decision, the Court concluded that an employee’s daily commute to an assigned job site was not on an errand or mission that could be characterized as special or uncustomary. Similarly, the Centurion 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 to be a special mission or errand made at the direction of his employer. Applying those holdings to the Centurion case, the Court reasoned that the fact that Carter worked at the Arabi job site was neither special nor uncustomary, so as to invoke the special mission exception.

In reaching its conclusion, the Centurion Court also considered Carter’s prior testimony about his decision to stop and purchase work boots while travelling home from Arabi. The Court concluded 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. In making that holding, the Court concluded that, at the time of the collision, Carter had been engaged in the purely personal matter of driving to Valdosta while on unpaid leave from work. Therefore, the Court held that Carter was not acting in the course and scope of his employment with Centurion when he caused the accident, and thus Centurion was not liable.

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, in order 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. Accordingly, because Carter was not engaged in Centurion’s business when he caused the collision, the Court held that Centurion was not liable for negligent hiring and retention.

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 supporting 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 consideration, what if the accident had occurred mere moments after the employee had left the Arabi job site? What if the employee had consumed alcohol immediately before departing the Arabi job site? What if the employee had been driving a company vehicle at the time of the accident? What if the employee had been incidentally transporting the employer’s tools and equipment on his trip home to Georgia? What if the employee had stopped at another one of the employer’s offices or job sites during transit? What if the employer had possessed deeper knowledge about the employee’s prior alcohol-related traffic infractions? What if the case survived summary judgment and landed before a particularly impassioned jury? The possibilities are endless, as are the potential liabilities.

The important lesson here is that employers should be keenly aware of the risks when employees are operating vehicles on company-related – even if only tangentially related – business, particularly when the employee operates company-owned vehicles, has a propensity to commit alcohol-related driving offenses, has a suspended driver’s license, and so forth. While the risk of liability can never be entirely eliminated, there are a myriad of internal safeguards and policies that legal counsel can help you implement to mitigate employer liability.

Chris Butler is an employment lawyer with Christopher Butler LLC in Atlanta and may be reached at 404.295.1985 or cbutlerlaw@outlook.com.