Hines v. Railserve, Inc.

757 S.E.2d 280, 326 Ga. App. 681, 2014 Fulton County D. Rep. 1116, 2014 WL 1259145, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 264
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMarch 28, 2014
DocketA13A2223
StatusPublished

This text of 757 S.E.2d 280 (Hines v. Railserve, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hines v. Railserve, Inc., 757 S.E.2d 280, 326 Ga. App. 681, 2014 Fulton County D. Rep. 1116, 2014 WL 1259145, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 264 (Ga. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinions

Dillard, Judge.

In this civil tort action, Colby Hines sued his employer, Railserve, Inc., alleging that the company is liable for the serious brain injury he suffered when a potato cannon, constructedby several of his co-workers on company premises, exploded during an attempt to fire it. Following discovery, Railserve moved for summary judgment, which the trial court granted. On appeal, Hines argues that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment because genuine issues of fact remain as to whether Railserve is liable under the theories of respondeat superior,1 Section 317 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, and negligent supervision. For the reasons set forth infra, we agree that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment, and, therefore, reverse.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant,2 the record shows that in September 2010, Hines was employed by Ameritrack, a division of Railserve, and specifically worked as a member of a railroad track installation and maintenance crew that operated out of Ameritrack’s facility (the “yard”) in El Dorado, Kansas. At around 5:00 p.m. on September 14, 2010, Hines’s crew—which included supervisor DeWayne Taylor and several other employees—finished its off-site track work for the day and returned to the yard. And upon their return, DeWayne Taylor, Hines, and several other members of the crew went to the machine shop located near the back of the yard to visit with Tim Taylor, DeWayne’s brother and the shop’s foreman, and some of the other shop mechanics—all of whom were still on the clock. There, some of the crew members began drinking beer that they had brought with them.

At around 6:15 p.m., Jeff Heisen, the branch manager of the facility, stopped by the shop on his way out and spoke with the group gathered there. And although Heisen noticed that some of the [682]*682employees were drinking beer, he did not ask anyone to stop drinking or direct those no longer on the clock to leave. However, shortly after leaving, Heisen called Brandon Dawson, another shop foreman who had been socializing with the Taylors and Hines’s crew at the time Heisen left, and told him to make sure that all off-duty employees left the yard. But Dawson did not relay this request, and the crew remained on the premises.

Then, sometime around 7:00 p.m., a few of the shop mechanics and maintenance crew retrieved a potato cannon that they had built a few days earlier using Railserve materials (and which had been stored in the shop). After placing the cannon on top of a trailer just outside of the shop, everyone in the group—including Hines—began looking for materials to fire, and the cannon ultimately was packed with gun powder and pieces of metal. DeWayne Taylor then lit the cannon’s fuse with a sparkler, at which point he and the rest of the group, other than Hines, took cover inside the shop. Indeed, rather than joining the retreat to cover, Hines climbed up a nearby fire escape and began recording the event with the video-recorder on his smart phone. But instead of firing its projectiles, the cannon exploded, and a piece of the resulting shrapnel struck Hines in the head, severely injuring him.

Thereafter, Hines filed a lawsuit against Railserve in the State Court of Clayton County,3 alleging that Railserve was liable for his injuries under theories of respondeat superior, § 317 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, and negligent supervision. Railserve answered and, following discovery, filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that all of Hines’s theories of recovery failed as a matter of law. And after Hines responded, the trial court held a hearing on the matter, and, applying Kansas law,4 it granted summary judgment in favor of Railserve as to all of Hines’s claims. This appeal follows.

1. Hines first contends that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment, arguing that genuine issues of material fact remain as to whether Railserve is liable under the theory of respondeat superior. We agree.

Under Kansas law, the phrase “imputed negligence” or “respondeat superior” refers to the doctrine which places upon one individual [683]*683responsibility for the negligence of another.5 Specifically, the doctrine of respondeat superior makes an employer responsible for the negligent actions of its employees, but only for acts that are for the purpose of the employer’s business or acts that are within the scope of the employer’s authority.6 And an employee acts within the scope of employment if “he or she performs services for which he or she has been employed or does anything reasonably incidental to the employment.”7 In fact, the test is not necessarily whether the specific conduct was expressly authorized or forbidden by the employer, “but whether such conduct should have been fairly foreseen from the nature of the employment and the duties relating to it.”8

In granting Railserve’s motion for summary judgment, the trial court acknowledged that there was evidence that Tim Taylor and Brandon Dawson had supervisory responsibilities at the Ameritrack yard and that both knew about the potato cannon. Additionally, there was evidence that Heisen—who had supervisory authority over all employees at the yard—directed Dawson to have off-the-clock employees leave the yard. Nevertheless, the trial court ruled that Hines’s respondeat-superior claim failed as a matter of law because neither Tim Taylor nor Dawson, as agents of Railserve, had a duty to prevent Hines from being harmed. However, contrary to the trial court’s assertion, the rule in Kansas is simply that “an employer has the duty not to expose his employees to perils which the employer may guard against by the exercise of reasonable care.”9 And here, there are certainly genuine issues of material fact as to whether both Tim Taylor and Dawson breached that duty by failing to direct off-the-clock employees, including Hines, to stop drinking beer, to stop attempting to detonate a dangerous explosive device, and to leave the premises. Accordingly, the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to Railserve as to Hines’s respondeat-superior claim.10

2. Hines also contends that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment because genuine issues of material fact remain [684]*684as to whether Railserve is liable pursuant to § 317 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. Again, we agree.

The Restatement (Second) of Torts § 317, titled the “Duty of Master to Control Conduct of Servant,” provides as follows:

A master is under a duty to exercise reasonable care so to control his servant while acting outside the scope of his employment as to prevent him from intentionally harming others or from so conducting himself as to create an unreasonable risk of bodily harm to them, if
(a) the servant
(i) is upon the premises in possession of the master or upon which the servant is privileged to enter only as his servant, or
(ii) is using a chattel of the master, and
(b) the master
(i) knows or has reason to know that he has the ability to control his servant, and

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Bluebook (online)
757 S.E.2d 280, 326 Ga. App. 681, 2014 Fulton County D. Rep. 1116, 2014 WL 1259145, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 264, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hines-v-railserve-inc-gactapp-2014.