Writing Resources
Fact Pattern 1 Your company provides a service to local businesses wherein office supplies are delivered daily on demand to the local area Your son s friend is looking for work and you know him well and hire him on the spot to be a delivery driver A few weeks later he is in the process of making a delivery and hits a pedestrian crossing the street severely injuring him Police come and measure his blood alcohol at 15 nearly twice the legal limit Turns out that your son s friend was previously convicted of DUI approximately 6 months ago You did not conduct a background check before hiring On what basis bases would the pedestrian have the ability to file suit against the company The pedestrian could use the basis of negligent hiring as a reason to file suit against the company as the company failed to take reasonable care in the hiring of the son s friend Negligent hiring extends the liability to the employers for harm caused by their employees The company assumed that the son s friend was an upstanding citizen based on only limited knowledge of the friend and did not do any degree of background checks Another basis the citizen could use the respondeat superior doctrine that makes employees directly liable for any harm to others that occurs when employees are acting within their scope of work or what they were hired to perform
