Excerpted from Louisiana Employment Law Letter, written by attorneys at the law firm Jones Walker
While employers are required to keep up with a multitude of laws and regulations, you aren't yet required to be psychic. As the case below illustrates, if you can't reasonably foresee a particular harm, you can't be held liable for failing to prevent it. You are only responsible for an employee's negligence when you could have foreseen and prevented the act that caused the harm and didn't.
Cards predict rocky future for employee
A pregnant forklift operator sustained injuries when she negligently drove her forklift into a steel I-beam at work. The employee was immediately taken to the hospital where she was examined and released the same day. She sustained some bruising, but there was no apparent injury to the unborn child.
Four months later, the employee gave birth to a little girl with cerebral palsy. On behalf of her minor child, the employee sued her employer claiming that the baby's condition was a result of the accident and that the company was responsible for the harm, which she argued was a result of her own negligence.
Yes, you read that correctly. The employee argued that she was negligent in the performance of her duties and then argued that her employer was responsible for the harm that resulted from her workplace conduct. The employer asked the court to dismiss the case.
The trial court decided in the employer's favor. The court said the employer couldn't be held responsible for the harm if it couldn't have prevented the act that allegedly caused it, which was the case in this instance. The employee appealed the decision.
Employer outlook is good
On appeal, the employee argued that the trial court shouldn't have dismissed the case because the relevant inquiry wasn't whether the employer had a duty to prevent the harm but whether she had a duty to prevent the harm. In other words, the employee argued that the court erred in focusing on the employer's duty, rather than her duty, and requested that her case be reinstated.
The court wasn't persuaded by the employee's argument. The court said the employer could be held responsible for the mother's negligence only if it could have prevented the act that caused the damage and didn't do so.
Here, the employer was powerless to prevent the employee's negligence. Under the discrimination laws, it couldn't require her to give up some of her duties just because she was pregnant. There was no evidence of previous negligence or a predisposition to be negligent on the employee's part because of her pregnancy that would've alerted the company that this type of accident would occur.
Thus, since the company couldn't have prevented the accident, it couldn't be held responsible for it. Cox v. Gaylord Container Corp., 2005 La. App. LEXIS 268 (La. App. 1st Cir., February 16, 2005).
Crystal ball predicts prosperous future for vigilant employers
Fortunately, as this case demonstrates, employers are liable for an employee's work-related negligence only if they could have prevented the act that caused the harm and didn't. The law doesn't require you to be psychic but does require you to be vigilant.
To minimize your chances of being hit with liability for an employees' negligence, you need to stay on top of their work practices and make sure that they're following proper company procedures, especially safety rules, when performing their work. Let them know how seriously you take the rules and the consequences of breaking them. A little extra effort to see that a job is done right can go a long way.
Copyright © 2005 M. Lee Smith Publishers LLC. This article is an excerpt from LOUISIANA EMPLOYMENT LAW LETTER. Louisiana Employment Law Letter does not attempt to offer solutions to individual problems but rather to provide information about current developments in Louisiana employment law. Questions about individual problems should be addressed to the employment law attorney of your choice. The State Bar of Louisiana does not designate attorneys as board certified in labor law.
