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Legal Responsibility, Technical Q

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DavidOdden

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Does someone have a solid legal understanding of legal responsibility, so that they can correct my understanding? The general question is, "How can person A be legally responsible for the actions of another person B", and the only two ways that I can see this arising is if (1) A is legally a custodian of B (parent, guardian) or (2) B is acting as an agent of A (employee etc). Have I missed something?

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On the criminal side, there are basically two ways. First, some criminal statutes, such as animal cruelty, might say you are guilty of X if you "commit Y or cause another person to commit Y." So you can in a sense be responsible legally for another person's actions, although it requires you to act. This kind of thing is like when a parent tells a kid to do something. If you tell another adult to do something, you don't really have control of the person. The second way is conspiracy. If you're part of a conspiracy, you can be held responsible for the actions of everyone involved (depending on the case law of the state), as long as the acts at issue naturally flowed form the conspiracy.

On the civil side, there's a doctrine called "respondeat superior," which means a "master," usually an employer, can be held civilly responsible for the actions of a "servant," usually an employee, as long as the employee was acting within the scope of his employment at the time. Children are actually liable for their own torts. Parents are only liable if the child has some special, known propensity for reckless behavior that the parent fails to control. However, since you're really suing the defendant's homeowners or renters insurance company, and the child is going to be covered, it really doesn't matter. There's really no economic difference in this context between suing the parent and suing the child, but the court will consider the child's actions, not the parent's. Also, in some cases, it may be impossible to tell who actually caused certain damage, but both defendants were equally negligent in all relevant respects (two people fire shotguns at a low-flying bird at the same time and another hunter gets hit). Generally, both will be held liable in these cases. Also, in some cases there may be a "special relationship" that requires you to prevent harm to another person, such as in when a prisoner is in custody (there is a duty to protect the prisoner from attacks from others). The attackers are liable for sure, but you might also be. Also, employers can sometimes be liable for "negligently hiring" reckless people who then cause harm.

Note: These are very brief answers to complex and debated legal issues.

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One can contract for indemnification as well, but that's not the same as "legal responsibility" the way I think you mean it. But even in the cases of parental liability for children's acts and employer liability for employees' acts, there are still requirements. In both cases, the parent/employer has to be somehow responsible in fact for the wrong committed by the child/employee. In both cases it amounts (in general terms) to a prior acceptance of responsibility for the acts of the other person, and in that way functions like indemnification (though not by the same mechanism). For example, respondeat superior requires that the wrong be committed by an employee while acting within the scope of his employment (i.e., under the direction, either direct or indirect, of his employer) and not on a frolic or detour (off doing his own thing during or in between performing his employment duties).

In all three cases (guardianship, respondeat superior, & indemnification), holding a third party liable for a wrong requires showing facts to establish an acceptance by one person of a duty to answer for the wrongs of another. At common law this kind of duty was never* imposed strictly by operation of law, even in the parent/child relationship.

These kinds of claims are different from claims like negligent hiring or negligent supervision, because they do not involve an aspect of wrongdoing by the third party - only an acceptance of responsibility. For that reason, I tend to think of respondeat superior and parental liability as indemnification claims brought by the wronged party against the indemnifier directly. (Ordinarily this is not done in contractual indemnification - you don't sue the insurance company of the guy who hit you with his car; you sue the guy. But the lawyers defending him will be paid by the insurance company.) They are really just different factual scenarios where one person has accepted responsibility for the wrongs of another.

~Q

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Another thing to remember--and this will drive any Objectivist bananas--the courts are really thinking about spreading social costs of negligence when they come up with these tort rules. The employer in a respondeat superior case needn't actually act negligently at all. If he has, then respondeat superior becomes superfluous, because you can sue the employer for his own negligence. The doctrine is all about getting at an employers deep pockets so the plaintiff doesn't go uncompensated, because most employees don't have enough assets or insurance to cover any serious claim. The theory is that the employer can better pay for it (even if through insurance). All employers then have to buy insurance, so the cost is spread out. Basically, respondeat superior is to actual culpability as mercy is to justice. The former in either case is an unethical substitute for the latter. And the "frolic" exception requires something pretty extreme. Courts will hold an employer liable even if someone is driving to or from work, on break, screwing off, etc., so long as it's not something extreme and totally unconnected with the job to be done and with the worksite or anything connected to it at all. I remember reading a case where some guys were screwing around with a pistol while on break (they weren't supposed to have it at work). It goes off and kills a guy. Widow sues. Company liable. That was workers comp., but it's the same underlying principle of getting at deep pockets, even when the employer is not really responsible.

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The underlying question has to do with how to interpret a contract clause like this (cleaned up to be less pompous):

insurance coverage also applies to the use of a non-owned car by the insured and
any other person legally responsible for the use by the insured of a car not owned by such other person
provided such use is with the permission of the car owner

Establishing the referent of "such use" in the "provided clause" is the issue -- is it to refer just to "any other person legally responsible" or "the insured and any other person legally responsible". Opinions are divided as to what a "natural" reading is; what complicates things is that it's not obvious that the (underlined) "other person" clause refers to anything. Reading the clause literally, and bearing in mind that the first part of the clause says that the insured is covered for other vehicles anyhow, it seems to me to say that if some person is legally responsible for the insured's use of a car but the responsible person gets in an accident, then that legally responsible party would also be covered. So for example, Jones hires me and I might end up driving a 4th party vehicle in the course of my job, but I'm not actually driving and Jones is, but because he's legally responsible for my driving on the job, he gets free insurance for his driving. Which would be completely nuts. My opinion is that the second clause describes a legal nullity.

Anyhow, I am trying to think of some sensible interpretation of this monster, and trying to figure out what they could have intended that second clause to mean. Thanks for the info.

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Echo borrows Foxtrot's car (with Foxtrot's permission, creating a bailment and an accompanying duty to exercise reasonable care with respect to the bailed property). Echo then hires Golf to have Golf drive Hotel around in the car for a while. Golf drives Hotel to an exclusive Hollywood party, where Hotel makes an ass of herself by neglecting to wear proper undergarments commensurate with the length of her skirt, and a firestorm of paparazzi descends on the vehicle. Aggravated by Hotel's behavior and the unwelcome photographic attention, Golf negligently pulls out into traffic, colliding with a vehicle driven by India.

Compare to:

Echo borrows Foxtrot's car (with Foxtrot's permission, creating a bailment and an accompanying duty to exercise reasonable care with respect to the bailed property). Echo then lends Foxtrot's car (again with Foxtrot's permission) to Golf, who wants to use it to take Hotel on a fancy date, because it is much nicer than Golf's own Volkswagen hatchback. Hotel again fails to wear proper garments and causes a scene, whereupon Golf decides to ditch her as quickly as possible, negligently pulling out in front of India, causing a collision.

In both cases, Golf is personally insured, and his insurance policy contains the clause you cite supra. And in both cases Foxtrot can sue Echo for the damage to his car.

In case 1, when Foxtrot sues Echo, Golf's insurer indemnifies Echo directly. Echo does not need to sue his employee, Golf, for indemnification. Echo is "legally responsible for the use of" Foxtrot's car by Golf under the respondeat superior doctrine. But in case 2, when Foxtrot sues Echo, Golf's insurer does not indemnify Echo. Echo may sue Golf for indemnification (perhaps by arguing that a bailment arose between him as bailor and Golf as bailee when he loaned Foxtrot's car to Golf), and Golf will be indemnified by his insurer. In case 2, Echo is not "legally responsible for the use of" Foxtrot's car by Golf because the bailment between Echo and Golf only creates a duty on the part of Golf to take reasonable care of the bailed property, whereas in case 1 the employment relationship creates a duty in the other direction - that Echo shall bear responsibility for Golf's wrongful actions (with the appropriate provisos, of course).

Likewise, when India sues for his injuries, the law of torts and the doctrine of respondeat superior will let him sue Echo in case 1, but not in case 2. The second clause in the policy allows for efficiency by providing that insurer will indemnify (and, usually, actually pay for the legal defense of) Echo directly in cases where respondeat superior allows Echo to be sued.

So I guess the difference between the cases is the difference between "legal responsibility for the use" and "legal responsibility for the property. The common law has readily created duties with respect to property, but has been reluctant to create duties with respect to the acts of others (probably moreso out of the difficulty of controlling the behavior of others than out of a longstanding respect for individual autonomy). Respondeat superior is one of the few areas where the common law has recognized factual scenarios that will give rise to such duties. The insurance clause you cite appears to be a way for this insurer to save costs by cutting out a step. Internally, this clause allows the company to accept and pay on claims against Golf's policy filed by someone other than the insured (in this case [case 1], a claim filed by Echo) in situations where the law will make that other person independently liable for the acts of the insured.

The clause does not describe a legal nullity, but it also doesn't change the legal outcome. It only changes the route by which that outcome is reached, making resolutions of claims more efficient for the insurer by cutting the policyholder out of the equation in cases where a non-policyholder will be liable for the policyholder's actions.

I think.

~Q

PS: Bad episode of Dollhouse? Too much Paris Hilton in the news? A disturbing VW commercial? Something's got me upset - time to figure out what....

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This is 270 Cal. App. 2d 346; Echo did not get permission to take Foxtrot's car, which Sierra (the insurer) claims eliminates their liability. The context or evident meaning do not indicate that the permission-restriction affects both clauses -- I'm trying to find a non-evident meaning that would require extending the permission condition to coverage of the insured. Structurally, the text divides covered usages into two, those by the insured, and those by certain others. Suppose the clauses were reordered:

insurance coverage also applies to the use of a non-owned car by
any other person legally responsible for the use by the insured of a car not owned by such other person
provided such use is with the permission of the car owner and the insured.

That introduces a new ambiguity, but it clearly take "the insured" out of the scope of the permission requirement. Then does the first clause (underlined) describe anything? L. Solan has the opinion that the natural reading of the language is that the insured must have permission of the owner, but I don't share that opinion based on reading (I understand the policy reasons why one might want such a reading, but that doesn't come from the text). But he's a linguist and a lawyer, and I'm just a linguist. When I read the language, the second clause (in the original order, the "others" clause) describes an absurdity since the first clause sufficient covers all instances where the insured is driving. I have been trying to come up with an interpretation where it's not Golf who was driving. If Golf was driving, then the unrestricted first clause means Golf's actions are covered. The teaching point is that when half of a conjunction is referentially meaningless (or the literal meaning would be absurd), then you cannot show that a modifier coming after the meaningless clause requires broad application of the modifier to both clauses.

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