Opinion
NO. CV-99-0222-N-WFN, Civ. 98-450-N-WFN
May 16, 2001
ORDER
A telephonic conference was held in this case on May 14, 2001. Darrel Aherin participated on behalf of Plaintiff Chadwick Brown; Assistant United States Attorney Joanne Rodriguez participated on behalf of Defendant United States. Because the parties have informed the Court that the claims between Plaintiff State Farm Insurance and Defendants United States and Department of Agriculture have been settled, those parties did not participate in the instant briefing or hearing. A previous telephonic status conference in this case was held on April 3, 2001, shortly after Judge Lodge reassigned the case to this Court. At that conference, the Court asked the parties to brief the issues raised by a recent Ninth Circuit opinion, Clamor v. United States, 240 F.3d 1215 (9th Cir. 2001), as related to the respondeat superior claim in the instant case. At the instant hearing, the Court heard oral argument on the issues raised by that case. The Court enters this Order to memorialize and supplement its oral rulings.
BACKGROUND
Factual Background . This case arises from a car crash that occurred in 1996 in Lewiston, Idaho, when a Ford Bronco driven by Robert Buckner rear-ended Plaintiff Brown's vehicle. At the time of the car crash, Mr. Buckner worked for the National Resources Conservation Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA]. The USDA owned the Bronco and had given Mr. Buckner permission to drive it during his visit to Lewiston from his normal station in Oklahoma. The parties do not dispute that the crash occurred around 10:00 p.m., several hours after Mr. Buckner left work, and that tests showed Mr. Buckner's blood alcohol level to be 0.17. Mr. Buckner said that at the time of the crash he was on his way to Dairy Queen to get some food. The Government asserts that the crash occurred at a location in the opposite direction from the route between Mr. Buckner's hotel and the Dairy Queen.
Procedural Background . On February 23, 2001, Judge Lodge adopted the Report and Recommendation by Magistrate Judge Williams on the summary judgment motions, which significantly narrowed the issues in the case. Specifically, Judge Lodge granted Defendant United States' Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff Susan Brown, granted Defendant United States' Motion to Dismiss Claims of Imputed Negligence, granted Defendant United States' Motion for Summary Judgment regarding the negligent entrustment claims, denied Defendant United States' Motion for Summary Judgment regardiny the respondeat superior claims, and denied Defendant United Statest Motion for Partial Summary Judgment-on liability. As a result of the Court's Order, only the issues of Robert Buckner's liability and the United States' liability under a theory of respondeat superior remained. On May 2, 2001, the parties filed Stipulations dismissing Defendants Robert and Loretta Buckner. As noted above, the parties also have informed the Court that all claims between Plaintiff State Farm Insurance and Defendants United States and USDA have been resolved. Therefore, Plaintiff's respondeat superior claim against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act constitutes the only remaining claim.
The Ninth Circuit issued its decision in Clamor v. United States after the summary judgment motions in the instant case. The Court became aware that this new decision might affect the remaining claim in the instant case, so the Court requested briefing from the parties on the issues raised. The United States has framed its briefing on the Clamor case as a brief in support of reconsideration of summary judgment on respondeat superior claim.
DISCUSSION
Holding of Clamor . In Clamor, the Ninth Circuit — applying Hawaii law — held that the United States could not be liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for a car crash caused by a federal employee driving a rental car provided by the government, because the crash did not occur at a time when the employee was acting within the scope of his employment. 240 F.3d at 1217. In Clamor, the government had stationed a civilian Navy employee at the Pearl Harbor Naval Base for a few weeks; the car crash occurred just a few minutes after the employee left work, before he had exited the military base, as he was driving back to his temporary home where the government had stationed him. Id. The Ninth Circuit applied the Hawaii state law standard for respondeat superior. "[A]n employee's conduct is within the scope of employment only if: (a) it is of the kind he is employed to perform; (b) it occurs substantially within the authorized time and space limits; [and] (c) it is actuated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the master." Id. Because at the time of the accident the employee was off duty, free to do whatever he wished, and not doing anything that benefitted his employer, the court held that the employee was not acting within the scope of his duty and the United States could not be liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Id.
Idaho v. Hawaii Law on Respondeat Superior . District courts evaluating respondeat superior claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act must apply the appropriate state law standard to determine whether an employee was acting within the scope of his employment at the time of the tort. Pelletier v. Fed. Home Loan Bank, 968 F.2d 865, 876 (9th Cir. 1992). In its brief, the United States argues that although the Ninth Circuit applied Hawaii law in the Clamor case, Idaho law applies the same standard. Under Idaho law, conduct falls within the scope of employment and the respondeat superior doctrine if the employee's conduct "is of the kind which he is employed to perform, occurs substantially within the authorized limits of time and space, and is actuated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the master." Podolan v. Idaho Legal Aid Services, 854 P.2d 280, 287 (Idaho Ct.App. 1993).
Both Hawaii and Idaho follow the Restatement (Second) of Agency § 228 in defining "scope of employment." Clamor, 240 F.3d at 1217; Wooley Trust v. DeBest Plumbing Inc., 983 P.2d 834, 838 (Idaho 1999). The Idaho Supreme Court has provided specific guidance in applying this standard: "[I]f the employee's purpose is purely personal, it does not matter that the employee is using the employer's tools or driving the employer's vehicle or some other activity that merely resembles his or her employment. The employee must be engaged in some type of work that is assigned to him or her in the general sense of doing something to serve the employer . . . . [I]t is apparent that serving the "master" is required in order for the conduct to be within the scope of employment." Wooley Trust, 983 P.2d at 838. See also Rausch v. Pocatello Lumber Co., 14 P.3d 1074, 1078 (Idaho Ct.App. 2000); Bettinger v. Idaho Auto Auction, Inc., 912 P.2d 695, 698 (Idaho Ct.App. 1996). The Idaho standard for defining scope of employment mirrors the Hawaii standard applied in Clamor.
Plaintiff argues that Idaho also recognizes a "traveling employee" doctrine, which more broadly defines the scope of employment. The Idaho Supreme Court has held in worker's compensation cases that "[w]hen an employee's work requires the employee to travel away from . . . the employee's normal place of work, the employee will be held to be within the course and scope of employment continuously during the trip, except when a distinct departure for personal business occurs." Andrews v. Les Bois Masonry, Inc., 896 P.2d 973, 975 (Idaho 1995); Ridgway v. Combined Ins. Cos., 565 P.2d 1367, 1368 (Idaho 1977); Kirkpatrick v. Transtector Systems, 759 P.2d 65, 68 (Idaho 1988). The Idaho cases applying the traveling employee, however, all focus specifically on worker's compensation, "keeping in mind the liberal construction that is to be given to the workmen's compensation laws." Ridgway, 565 P.2d at 1369. The concurring opinion in the Idaho Supreme Court decision that established the traveling employee doctrine makes clear that it applies only to worker's compensation law and should not be applied in tort cases. "[T]he causal connection that a claimant must establish in a workmen's compensation situation is less than that which a plaintiff must establish in a tort action." Ridgeway, 565 P.2d at 1371 (Bistline, J., concurring). The concurring justices also referenced the U.S. Supreme Court's recognition that the standard in worker's compensation claims is more all-encompassing than tort law and other employment law standards. "Workmen's compensation is not confined by common-law conceptions of scope of employment." Id., quoting O'Leary v. Brown-Pacific-Maxon, Inc., 340 U.S. 504, 506 (1950).
No Idaho case law applies the traveling employee doctrine when evaluating an employer's liability to a third party in a tort case. Furthermore, although the traveling employee doctrine broadens the scope of employment for worker's compensation cases, the doctrine also recognizes that an employer should not be liable when an employee makes an unreasonable departure from a work-related trip to pursue some purely personal activity. Therefore, even if the traveling employee doctrine were applied in the instant case, the Court should evaluate whether Mr. Buckner's trip at the time of the car crash constituted an unreasonable departure to pursue a purely personal activity.
Idaho Law Applied to Instant Case . Under the. Idaho standard governing respondeat superior claims, Mr. Buckner was not acting within the scope of his employment for the U.S. Government at the time of the crash. Mr. Buckner's drive to Dairy Queen, four hours after leaving work and with a blood alcohol level of 0.17, did not relate to the work the government employed him to perform, did not occur within the time and space parameters of his employment, and did not result from Mr. Buckner's purpose to serve his employer. Even applying the worker's compensation "traveling employee" standard urged by Plaintiff, the Court finds that Mr. Buckner's drunk driving constituted an unreasonable departure from his employment, done to pursue a purely personal activity. Therefore, under Idaho law and the Ninth Circuit opinion in Clamor, which applied a virtually identical standard for respondeat superior, Plaintiff's claim against the United States should be dismissed as a matter of law.
Standard for Reconsidering Prior Order . The "law of the case" doctrine limits a court's power to reconsider and modify its prior interlocutory rulings. When a court has ruled on an issue, the court generally should adhere to that decision in subsequent stages in the same case. Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 (1983). While the law of the case doctrine governs the case before a final judgment, "lilt does not mandate perpetuation of error and may even under certain circumstances be inappropriate to preclude reconsideration of those issues that, because of their intrinsic importance, must be left open for sua sponte reexamination." Christianson v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 798 F.2d 1051, 1056 (7th Cir. 1986). The, U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that "courts should be loathe to [revisit prior decisions in a case] in the absence of extraordinary circumstances such as where the initial decision was `clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.'" Arizona, 460 U.S. at 618 (1983) (citations omitted). In the Ninth Circuit, a court may exercise its discretion to depart from the law of the case where an intervening change in the controlling law has occurred. United States v. Alexander, 106 F.3d 874, 876 (9th Cir. 1997)
Based on the new Ninth Circuit opinion in Clamor, the Court finds it appropriate to revisit Judge Lodge's denial of summary judgment on the issue of the United States' liability under the theory of respondeat superior. Based on the analysis above, the intervening change in law directly impacts the validity of Plaintiff's claim and warrants dismissal of Plaintiff's respondeat superior claim against the United States.
CONCLUSION
The government employee whose car crashed into Plaintiff Brown was not acting within the scope of his employment, as defined by Idaho law and interpreted by the Ninth Circuit, at the time of the crash; therefore, the United States cannot as a matter of law be liable under a theory of respondeat superior. Because a new Ninth Circuit case clarified this legal issue after Judge Lodge's denial of Defendants' motion for summary judgment, revisiting the prior order to dismiss Plaintiff's claim constitutes an appropriate exception to the law of the case doctrine. Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. Plaintiff Brown's respondeat superior claim against the United States is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. Judgment shall be ENTERED in favor of the United States.
2. Because the parties have informed the Court that Plaintiff State Farm Insurance and Defendants United States and Department of Agriculture have settled their claims, the clerk of Court shall CLOSE this file in its entirety, subject to reopening upon good cause shown. Any settlement documents may be filed without a motion to reopen the file or a further order of the Court.
The Clerk of Court is directed to file this Order, provide copies to counsel, and CLOSE THIS FILE, Case No. CV-99-0222-N-WFN, as well as Case No. CV-98-00450N-WFN.