The California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, recently addressed whether a city and police department can be held liable for sexual abuse committed by a supervising police officer on young women involved in a police explorer program. (Jane Doe I v. City of Murrieta, 2002 WL 31246575).
Background
The Murrieta Police Department operated a police explorer program designed to acquaint teenagers with law enforcement. As part of the program, officers, who served as advisors, took explorers on one-on-one ride alongs. Two sixteen year old women who were involved in the program began to take frequent, late night, ride-alongs with one officer. The two young women engaged in consensual sexual encounters with the officer while participating in the ride-alongs. The young women brought a lawsuit against the City of Murrieta, the Murrieta Police Department, and the officer alleging that the City and police department were vicariously liable for the officer’s actions and that they were negligent in failing to protect the young women from sexual exploitation by the officer. The trial court dismissed the young women’s claim for vicarious liability and entered judgment in favor of the City and the police department on the negligence claim.
The Appellate Decision
The Court of Appeal concluded that, as a matter of law, the City cannot be held vicariously liable for the officer’s conduct because he was not acting within the scope of his employment when he sexually abused the young women. The Court stated that the “illicit sexual act did not arise out of the exercise of [the officer’s] job-created authority.” The Court, however, found that the City and the police department were not entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the allegations of negligence. The Court noted that the rules governing the explorer program prohibited late-night ride-alongs and fraternization with the explorers. However, members of the police department knew of the young women’s “infatuation” with the officer, knew that were accompanying him on late-night ride-alongs in violation of the rules, and also knew they were making frequent phone calls to him at the station. The Court concluded that a question of fact remains as to whether the City and police department failed to intervene on the young women’s behalf when they knew or should have known that the officer was sexually exploiting the young women. The Court of Appeal sent the case back to the trial court to allow the young women’s case to proceed on the issue of negligence.