Negligent Hiring Liability: A Case Study of Superior Electrical vs. Carson

Abstract

Instructor’s Name Due Date Introduction Negligent tort liabilities occur when an individual fails to exercise a standard duty of care in their line of duty causing harm or injury prompting legal responsibility. Negligence is failing to exercise what is prudent or reasonable in the line of duty while a tort represents a civil wrong resulting in injury which makes negligence an example of a tort (Stoyanova, 2019). A tort may be omitted unintentionally or may result through negligence. Liability refers to seeking legal responsibility because of harm or damages. The case of Superior Electrical (Employer) and Cory Jones (employee) is an example of a negligent tort liability to be used in this discussion. Superior employs Jones as an apprentice electrician who forged his employment application yet the Superior did not bother to question his credentials. Jones had been criticized as unroadworthy; his license had been suspended for numerous traffic violations including careless driving and driving without a license. After working as an apprentice for a year, he was given a promotion to electrician by his boss and was given a company car to transport company essentials and was to take the car home after work. He ended up driving recklessly colliding with two cars and it was determined he was the problem. The accident caused severe injury to Carolyne Carson and her son. Carson demanded the cause of action on the basis of Liability for Respondeat Superior and negligent hiring. The tort of negligence compounds the question of law and facts. This paper will use the case Superior vs. Carson in analyzing negligent Tort Liabilities. Elements of the Negligent Hiring Claim Duty of Care: Superior Electricals has a duty to exercise reasonable care as an organization as a standard of care in preventing foreseeable trouble. It is essential for a company to embrace ethical hiring processes to shape organizational culture based on laws and regulations (Brandle et al., 2022). Pre-hire questioning needs to be asserted in enhancing duty of care. This is done by conducting background investigations of the applicants which controls the hiring process. Taking security concerns for embracing a duty of care should not be an afterthought for any company. Superior Electricals failed to embrace the duty of care in the hiring process. Breach of the duty of care Superior Electrical failed to look at Jones's past history by not embracing ethical hiring. Assessing competent candidates involves checking their credentials and CVs which Superior ignored. The company did not try to investigate Jones’s undesirable background during the hiring process. Jones was a careless driver with no driving license had been criminalized for traffic violations and was unsafe to work for any company. Superior should have known that Jones’s position needed a sound background check but did not screen anything breaching the duty of care for its customers and surroundings. Causation Proactive costs are cheaper than reactive costs. Superior Electricals suffered damages due to negligent hiring. The cost that involves negligent hiring is tremendous and the plaintiff's success can get to multimillions- of dollars in compensation. A company is doomed to fail and run a risk when it relies on an applicant's information on their resume or that provided in the job application form. An employer must screen every applicant. If Jones could not have been hired, Carson and her son would not have been injured. A background check on Jones would have uncovered the fact that he was not road-worthy. Jones was incapacitated from working as a driver, he had no license and had numerous traffic violations and he ended up causing tremendous damages and injury to the plaintiff. Application of the legal Hiring elements to the case During the initial stages of hiring, Jones was not provided with a company car. Superior must have been aware of Jones’s driving record since they did not hire him as a driver during the employment decision stages. After a year he was given a promotion and a company car. Superior did not exercise a reasonable duty of care in making a promotion into a docket that was sensitive to the company’s reputation. Hiring was casual and was not done in proximity to law and facts which led to Jones’s atrocities. The investigation and identification of misconduct as a company’s drive is a major security responsibility for any company. Negligent hiring is often a result of the failure of the supervisor or the superior to effectively oversight the hiring process. Jones was given the job without oversight as an electrician but as an apprentice electrician. Liability of the...