Majorana v. Crown Cent. Petroleum Corp.
| Decision Date | 03 November 2000 |
| Docket Number | Record No. 992179. |
| Citation | 539 S.E.2d 426,260 Va. 521 |
| Parties | Laura MAJORANA v. CROWN CENTRAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION. |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
David H.N. Bean, Strasburg, for appellant.
Laurie A. Hand (Grad, Logan & Klewans, on brief), Alexandria, for appellee.
Present: All the Justices.
In this appeal, we consider issues relating to the doctrine of respondeat superior, sanctions imposed by the trial court related to the late identification of witnesses, the bifurcation of a civil trial, and jury instructions on the tort of negligent hiring. Because these issues relate to discrete rulings made by the trial court in a voluminous record, we will address each in turn, stating the relevant facts and proceedings within the discussion.
On January 30, 1997, Laura Majorana filed a motion for judgment against Crown Central Petroleum Corporation (Crown) and Kuldip Singh Bains. Majorana alleged in her motion for judgment that on March 11, 1996, Bains was working as a station attendant at Crown's retail gas station in Warrenton. The gas station has self-service gasoline pumps and a payment booth where soft drinks are also displayed for sale. Inside this booth, a payment counter separates customers from employees of the gas station.
Majorana alleged that she stopped at this gas station, where she was a regular customer, to purchase gasoline. When she attempted to pay for her purchase with a credit card, Bains produced a small black notebook and refused to complete the transaction unless she provided him with her telephone number. Bains told Majorana that "I tell my friends I am going to marry you." When Majorana refused to give Bains her telephone number, Bains became angry, refused to return her credit card, told her to get some sodas, and "take a break" while he attended to purchases of other customers.
Majorana further alleged that when the other customers had paid and left, Bains moved from behind the counter, lunged at her, and attempted to kiss her. He then grabbed her breasts, rubbed his body against hers, "and made an animal-like conquering scream." Bains then returned to the attendant's side of the payment counter and told Majorana that he would pay for her gas. Majorana demanded her credit card and receipt and Bains complied.
Seeking $1,000,000 in compensatory damages and $4,000,000 in punitive damages, Majorana's motion for judgment asserted various theories of liability including assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress against Bains and Crown, gross negligence and simple negligence against Crown for failing to maintain a safe environment for a business invitee, and negligent hiring, training, and retention of Bains against Crown. In her assertions of assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress, Majorana included a claim that Crown was vicariously liable for Bains' acts performed within the scope of his employment with Crown.
Although Bains initially was represented by counsel, early in the proceedings he ceased cooperating with his counsel, who sought and was granted permission to withdraw from the case. After Bains failed to appear in further proceedings, Majorana filed a motion for default judgment against Bains, which the trial court granted.
Crown filed a demurrer to the motion for judgment challenging the legal sufficiency under Virginia law of claims for negligent training or retention, and claiming that an employer's duty of care does not go beyond the initial hiring decision. A subsequent separate motion filed by Crown sought summary judgment on the theory that Bains was not, as a matter of law, acting within the scope of his employment in the conduct which is the subject of Majorana's claims of assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Crown asserted that when Bains moved from behind the payment counter, he was acting thereafter outside the scope of his employment and against the interests of Crown. By order dated February 9, 1999, the trial court overruled the demurrer and the motion for summary judgment. Crown filed a motion for reconsideration, addressing only the respondeat superior issue raised in the motion for summary judgment. Majorana, who had not previously filed any written statement of her position on this issue, filed a responding brief citing Plummer v. Center Psychiatrists, Ltd., 252 Va. 233, 476 S.E.2d 172 (1996). She contended that Plummer supported the trial court's initial finding that her motion for judgment sufficiently stated a cause of action against Crown by raising a material question of fact as to whether Bains was acting within the scope of his employment when he assaulted her. By order dated April 9, 1999, the trial court granted Crown's motion for reconsideration and entered summary judgment for Crown on the claims of assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Majorana assigns error to this ruling and the subsequent denial of her post-trial motion for reconsideration of this issue.1
Although Crown sought summary judgment on this issue, it relied exclusively on the allegations of the motion for judgment to support its argument that Bains was acting outside the scope of his employment. Although Rule 3:18 permits a trial court to enter summary judgment on the pleadings, judgment "shall not be entered if any material fact is genuinely in dispute." This "assures that parties' rights are determined upon a full development of the facts, not just upon pleadings." Commercial Business Systems, Inc. v. Halifax Corp., 253 Va. 292, 297, 484 S.E.2d 892, 894 (1997). In this procedural posture, the issue presented in this case is whether the facts alleged in the motion for judgment are sufficient to support the plaintiff's legal conclusion that the employee acted within the scope of his employment when he committed the wrongful acts against the plaintiff and, thus, raise a material question of fact not amenable to resolution by summary judgment.2
In Plummer, we held that an allegation that the employee, a therapist, had engaged in an improper sexual relationship with a patient stated a cause of action against his employer under the doctrine of respondeat superior. 252 Va. at 237, 476 S.E.2d at 174. Majorana asserts on appeal, as she did below, that the rationale of Plummer applies with equal force to the allegations in her motion for judgment with respect to Crown's liability for Bains' acts. Crown notes that in Plummer there was an allegation that the therapist's "education, experience, and knowledge of the plaintiff" facilitated his seduction of the patient. Id. at 237, 476 S.E.2d at 174-75. Crown contends that the absence of similar allegations in Majorana's motion for judgment of circumstances in the employment facilitating Bains' assault materially distinguishes her pleading from the pleading in Plummer. We disagree with Crown.
In Gina Chin & Associates, Inc. v. First Union Bank, 260 Va. ___, 537 S.E.2d 573 (2000), also decided today, we have discussed in detail the necessary elements of a cause of action for liability against an employer for the willful and wrongful acts of its employee premised upon the doctrine of respondeat superior. Accordingly, we need not reiterate that discussion here. It is sufficient to say that in such cases, while the plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion on the issue whether the employee was within the scope of the employment when the act which caused the injury was committed, the plaintiff's burden of production on that issue is met by establishing the employer-employee relationship at that time. When the plaintiff presents evidence sufficient to show the existence of an employer-employee relationship, she has established a prima facie case triggering a presumption of liability. McNeill v. Spindler, 191 Va. 685, 694-95, 62 S.E.2d 13, 17-18 (1950). The burden of production then shifts to the employer, who may rebut that presumption by proving that the employee had departed from the scope of the employment relationship at the time the injurious act was committed. Kensington Associates v. West, 234 Va. 430, 432-33, 362 S.E.2d 900, 901 (1987). If the evidence leaves in doubt the question whether the employee acted within the scope of the employment, the issue is to be decided by the jury and not as a matter of law by the trial court. Id.; see also Plummer, 252 Va. at 235,476 S.E.2d at 174.
While we noted in Plummer that the motion for judgment in that case contained specific allegations of circumstances that facilitated the wrongful act which caused the plaintiffs injury, these allegations were not dispositive to our decision. The sole issue in that case was whether the trial court erred by holding, as a matter of law, that the motion for judgment did not state the necessary elements of respondeat superior within its factual allegations. Clearly, the motion for judgment here contains an allegation of an injury caused by the willful and wrongful act an employee committed in the course of the employer-employee relationship and within the scope of his employment. It alleges that Bains was Crown's employee, that he assaulted Majorana at his regular place of employment, and that he did so while he was performing the business of his employer for which she was the employer's customer.
Thus, as we said in Plummer, "at this stage of the proceedings, there simply are not sufficient facts which would permit us to hold, as a matter of law, that the defendant has met its burden of showing that its employee was not acting within the scope of his employment." 252 Va. at 237, 476 S.E.2d at 175. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court erred in entering summary judgment for Crown on the allegations in Majorana's motion for judgment asserting Crown's liability for assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress by respondent superior.
The trial...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Parker v. Carilion Clinic
...their employment when they committed the alleged tort. See Appellant's Suppl. Reply Br. at 2; see also Majorana v. Crown Cent. Petroleum Corp. , 260 Va. 521, 526, 539 S.E.2d 426 (2000).6 Carilion acknowledges the rebuttable presumption but contends that the cases cited by Parker apply only ......
-
Our Lady of Peace, Inc. v. Morgan
...that its employee was not acting within the scope of his employment" (emphasis in original)); see also Majorana v. Crown Cent. Petroleum Corp. , 260 Va. 521, 527, 539 S.E.2d 426 (2000) (applying, in a case involving a sexual assault, Plummer ’s holding that the trial court erred in finding ......
-
Doe v. Baker
...judgment, the circuit court effectively treated the summary judgment motion as a demurrer. See Majorana v. Crown Cent. Petroleum Corp. , 260 Va. 521, 526 n.2, 539 S.E.2d 426 (2000). Because the circuit court was asked to dismiss the vicarious liability claims, we reject Jane's argument that......
-
A.H. v. Church of God in Christ, Inc.
...to cause injury to others was either known or should have been discovered by reasonable investigation." Majorana v. Crown Cent. Petroleum Corp. , 260 Va. 521, 531, 539 S.E.2d 426 (2000) ; see also Friend, supra note 6, § 26.2, at 670 (3d ed. 2003); Sinclair, supra note 6, § 26-1[B], at 26-5......