John hires Emma to be a delivery driver She is an employee o

John hires Emma to be a delivery driver. She is an employee of his LLC, John\'s Dry Cleaning LLC. Emma is out one day making deliveries. She takes a direct route to the first delivery location. On the way she runs a red ligh and hits a car owned by Kim. Emma exchanges information with Kim and continues making deliveries. She completes all deliveries and starts to drive back to John\'s Dry Cleaning. She decides to stop at her mother\'s house on th way back. It\'s her mom\'s birthday and she wants to surprise her. Emma\'s mom lives 20 miles off the direct route back to the dry cleaners. Emma negligently hits a car owner by Zoe about 1 block from her mom\'s house. Emma exchanges information with Zoe. She decides she better not push her luck and drives back to John\'s dry Cleaning. John\'s Dry Cleaning LLC. is sued by both Kim and Zoe. Explain why John\'s Dry Cleaning is or isn\'t liable to Kim. Explain why John\'s Dry Cleaning is or isn\'t liable to Zoe. Kim and Zoe sue John personally. Can Kim and Zoe recover damages for John Personally? Explain why or why not.

Solution

Answer:

John\'s Dry Cleaning LLC is liable to Kim, because Emma is an employee of the John\'s Dry cleaning LLC, she is working on behalf of her employer when she hits Kim\'s car on the course of her first delivery location. All the acts done by her in the ordinary course of business will be assumed to be done on behalf of the employer/company.

However in case of Zoe, John\'s Dry Cleaning may not be liable to Zoe only if Emma tell the truth that she hits Zoe\'s car on her way to her mom\'s house instead of directly going back to John\'s Dry Cleaning LLC, which was 20 miles off the direct route but if she doesn\'t tells the truth then John\'s Dry cleaning LLC will be considered liable as since the place of Emma\'s mom falls in the way back to John\'s Dry cleaning then no one question Emma like what she was doing there and everyone going to believe that she negligently hit Zoe\'s car in the course of her employment , it says that the employer should look after her all acts. So John would be liable to pay damages if she doesn\'t tell the truth.

Kim and Zoe cannot recover damages from John personally, because it wasn\'t John who hit their cars. However, Kim and Zoe may sue John for negligence by his employee and wait for the decision of the case and enquiry. Kim and Zoe may sue Emma personally and recover the damages from Emma, if she accept that it was all her negligence/fault and John has nothing to do with it.