A student sent us this email: I am a business law student and I am doing my research paper on the following:
"Joe" gets called for his random CDL drug test, but tells the Operations Manager that he is not going to pass. The Operations Manager tells the Human Resources Manager to hold off on the drug test until he can pass. In the meantime, "John" get's injured on the job site due to "Joe's" negligence. Who is liable, the company, Operations Manager, H.R. Manger or all of the above? I am having trouble finding information on this, could you recommend any sources?
How Does the Law Work When A Company Conspires to Fake Drug Tests?
Dear Law Student,
I don't name sources, because I am one.
All kidding aside, the short answer to your question is that the company is liable and they're liable in a couple of different ways. However, in the work injury scenario you outlined, their negligence is irrelevant due to the presence of workers' compensation, but I'll circle back to that at the end.
Let's revise your premise just a little, so as not to get distracted by the complexities of work injury law, which are an exception to normal common law rules concerning liability. Let's instead imagine that John is not an employee of the company. Instead, let's imagine that he is, say, just a regular guy out for a walk near the company's headquarters when his injury occurs. Aside from that distinction, let's keep all the other facts the same. This would create a scenario where Joe, while in the course and scope of his employment, engages in an act of negligence and hurts John.
Who is liable? First and foremost, Joe would be liable in his individual capacity. However, since he was acting to further the business interests of the company when the negligence occurred, the company is also vicariously liable under the legal doctrine of respondeat superior. This doctrine holds that a principal and agent relationship exists between the company and the employee and that the employer is ultimately answerable for the misconduct of the employee.
The rationale behind this doctrine is that companies shouldn't be able to benefit from all the good their workers do and then turn a blind eye when their workers do something bad. Absent this doctrine, companies would be incentivized to gain an advantage over their competitors by disregarding safety rules.
Just think about how much money Papa John's could make if they could deliver pizzas twice as fast as Pizza Hut. If they can do so through better use of technology or through a more efficient business model, God bless them. But if they gain a competitive advantage by encouraging their employees to run stoplights and to drive on sidewalks to bypass traffic, this would put a lot of people at risk of injury and death. If we did not have the doctrine of respondeat superior then Papa John's (or whoever) could encourage their employees to break the law, reap the benefit of the competitive advantage gained through taking such risks, and then when one of their employees inevitably hurts someone, the company would simply say, "Not our fault. It's the employee's fault." Are there negatives associated with a legal doctrine that makes employers answerable for the misconduct of their employees? Sure. But making employers answerable is the lesser of two evils by a huge margin.
So far we've established that Joe would be liable and that the company would be vicariously liable for Joe's negligence. But in addition to Joe's personal liability and the company's vicarious liability, the company also engaged in a distinct act of negligence in their own right; several in fact. Encouraging Joe to hide his would-be-failing drug test results is an act of general negligence and possibly an act of gross negligence. Further, it sounds like they have also engaged in negligent supervision and (arguably) in negligent training. Additionally, the ops manager and HR manager would also be liable in their individual capacities and the company would be vicariously liable for their misconduct. There may also be grounds for making allegations of civil conspiracy, which is an intentional tort (or as my lawyer wife likes to say, an "on purpose" instead of an "on accident").
One component of civil law that is largely unheard of by the public is the "jury charge." The jury charge is essentially a questionnaire given to the jury, sort of a fill-in-the-blank form. This is where all the magic happens in personal injury cases. Many hard-fought legal battles center on nothing more than what the plaintiff is allowed to write on the jury charge, since it frames the discussion the jury has during deliberations. The public usually imagines that the plaintiffs and defendants each present their version of events and the jury deliberates and just arbitrarily makes up a verdict. Not true. Instead, they are given a jury charge which directs their deliberations by asking them to fill in answers to some "yes/no" questions and then prompts them make up numbers for various alleged losses.
The more bad stuff that one can allege a defendant has done, the more "does the evidence show they did X?" questions the plaintiff can include in the jury charge. Given the scenario we described above, the jury wouldn't be asked whether or not they thought the company was negligent, and therefore it's all riding on how the jury answers that one question. Instead, the jury charge will have multiple questions to answer, stemming from the multiple allegations of misconduct alleged by the injured party. "Does the evidence show Joe did X, does it show he did Y, does it show he did Z?" Likewise, there will be multiple questions concerning the employer's liability for its many sins. Ditto the supervisors. "Does the evidence show that The Company did X, Y, or Z. All of this amounts to John having numerous "bites at the apple;" numerous chances for the defendants to be found liable for at least one of the bad things. If they're found negligent for any of the alleged misconduct then John wins his case. Then he is awarded the dollar figure the jury came up with.
So the short answer to your question is that some or all of those people and entities can be liable. This makes sense if you think about it. If me, you, and eight other people all decide to beat up a homeless person, they're probably not just going to arrest one or two of us, they'll arrest us all, and rightly so. The same concept holds true in civil cases. If multiple people broke the law or acted recklessly, then the blame is divided among all of the tortfeasors.
Lastly, I mentioned earlier that if John had been an employee of the company, all of the above would be irrelevant. The reason for this is that all states in America have their own form of workers' compensation laws. While the particulars vary from state to state, the one thing that the workers' comp laws of all states have in common is that they eradicate all of the above as it pertains to work injuries. Most states use a workers' compensation system wherein the employer's fault is not even considered. Rather than a work injury victim being compensated based on proving the merits of his case and arguing that someone else's negligence caused his injuries which therefore makes them liable to him, under the worker's comp system, he only has to show that he was injured while on the job and he therefore automatically qualifies for compensation.
Further, the compensation he gets doesn't involve a settlement or a lawsuit or a jury trial. The workers' comp system is basically a work injury welfare system, much like applying for food stamps. For instance, the administrators processing a claim for food stamp benefits don't necessarily consider why someone is poor and needs food stamps, they only consider that the person is indeed poor. Likewise, when someone is hurt on the job and the employer participates in their state's workers' comp system, all that is considered is eligibility and formulaic benefit payments, not liability, negligence, damages, etc.
All that to say, if the company did all the bad stuff you allege and a member of the general public is hurt, many heads will roll. But if a company does all of that bad stuff and the only one injured is one of their employees, no one will get sued and the only thing that happens is that workers' comp benefits will be paid to the injured worker. This highlights the problem that I have with workers' compensation. Sure, it's great that injured workers can have a guaranteed safety net of benefits, but it stinks that they lose their constitutional right to a trial by jury in the bargain. Without being able to sue people and give them what for, what incentive do they have to stop breaking the law?
I hope that info helps. Also, take what you learn in that class with a grain of salt. I've taken a few of those classes before and they were, at best, accurate-ish. Real-deal law professors are not always right about the law, much less professors teaching classes on general legal principles, like you're likely to encounter in a business law class.