holding that the County could not be held vicariously liable for sexual harassment by a deputy sheriff who worked at jail, even though harassment occurred during work hours at the jail, because the misconduct was “motivated for strictly personal reasons unrelated to the guarding of inmates or the performance of any other duty”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the County could not be held vicariously liable for sexual harassment by a deputy sheriff who worked at jail, even though harassment occurred during work hours at the jail, because the misconduct was “motivated for strictly personal reasons unrelated to the guarding of inmates or the performance of any other duty”
- holding that fact that nearly all 24 of harassing conduct took place at workplace during work hours was insufficient to establish that 25 wrongdoer was acting within scope of his employment
- acknowledging that the applicable statutes “indicate that respondeat superior and scope of employment principles are supposed to play an integral role in fixing an *51 employer’s liability for both supervisor and nonsupervisor sexual harassment” but applying the aided-by-agency exception because “it is reasonably clear that the purpose underlying the comprehensive statutory scheme is to ensure that all employers maintain their worksites free from prohibited sexual harassment, regardless of the lack of foreseeability of such harassment in their particular enterprises”
- noting that California cases generally decline to find vicarious liability for sexual misconduct other than in police-officer cases because “it [can] not be demonstrated that the various acts of sexual misconduct ar[i]se from the” conduct of the enterprise
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Myers v. Trendwest Resorts, Inc., 56 Cal. Rptr. 3d 501 (2007)
Farmers, supra, 11 Cal.4th 992, is distinguishable because it did not involve misconduct by a supervisor.
The opinion
BAXTER, J., Concurring.
Although I authored the majority opinion, I write separately to reiterate my disagreement with Mary M. v. City of Los Angeles (1991) 54 Cal.3d 202 [ 285 Cal.Rptr. 99 , 814 P.2d 1341 ] (Mary M.) and to clarify that I adhere to the views set forth in my concurrence to that opinion and to those expressed by Justice George’s concurrence in the case at bar.
I also write separately because, while I agree with Justice George that Mary M. was wrongly decided and should be overruled, I do not believe this case presents the proper vehicle because the facts here are amply distinguishable.