Home      Login

Abstract: 

Respondeat superior is a legal doctrine which holds an employer legally responsible for the wrongful acts of an employee, if such acts occur within the scope of the employment. Typically when respondeat superior is invoked, a plaintiff will file suit against both the employer and the employee, and a court will generally look to the doctrine of joint and several liability when assigning damages. In the two cases we review in this issue, plaintiffs filed respondeat superior claims against jails, their contracted private health care providers, and individual staff members, and in both suits, the defendant agencies won summary judgments while the staff members did not, and will have to defend their performance at trial.

Keywords: Safar v. Corizon, Inc., 2018 WL 6505499 (D.Md. 2018); Carr v. El Paso County, Colorado, 757 Fed.Appx. 651 (10th Cir. 2018)

Affiliations:  1: State of Ohio Supreme Court Library.