De Villers v. County of San Diego, decided by the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One, deals with a real-life crime that would make a decent plot for a "CSI" episode: A former meth addict becomes a medical examiner and starts an affair with a co-worker. Her husband finds out, and threatens to expose her. She calls 911 and reports that her husband has stopped breathing. The paramedics arrive and find the husband on the floor, with rose petals strewn around his body. It turns out that the medical examiner poisoned her husband with drugs she stole from work.
A jury found the county liable for both negligent hiring/supervision and breach of mandatory duty. The appellate court reversed on both grounds.
First, the court ruled that the county could not be held vicariously liable for its managerial employees' failure to properly inspect the examiner's background or prevent her crimes. The county could not be held liable unless the subject employees could be held individually liable, the court held. And unless the employees had actual knowledge that the examiner posed a criminal threat to her husband, they had no duty to prevent the criminal attack. The county therefore could not be held vicariously liable.
Second, the court ruled that because no statute makes the county directly liable for negligent hiring or supervision, the county could not be held directly liable for those torts. It held that past cases finding public employers directly liable for negligently hiring/supervising those who commit criminal acts (such as teachers who molest students) were no longer good law, after California Supreme Court cases that rejected common-law negligence claims against public entities.
Finally, the court rejected the theory that the county could be held directly liable under Government Code section 815.6 for breaching a mandatory duty: a federal regulation that required it to provide effective controls and procedures to gaurd against theft of controlled substances. The court held that the regulation was not a mandatory duty, because it did not impose a mandatory obligation to guarantee no drugs would ever be stolen, and did not mandate any particular method of keeping the drugs secure; it only set goals. The steps taken to meet those goals were discretionary, not mandatory. Further, there was no evidence that the regulation was designed to guard against this particular type of injury -- use of the drugs to commit premeditated murder.
This case's application should not be limited to its lurid facts. It should apply whenever plaintiffs attempt to hold public employers liable for their employees' criminal acts. It demonstrates the high standard plaintiffs must meet to do so.