We found this one on the California Employment Attorney Blog early this morning. The case does not define if the employer conducted a proper background check, it does however say they knew about the convictions. The good news for the employer is they were found not liable. The bad news for their management is they should look at their hiring practices and re-evaluate what types of crimes eliminate applicants from employment.
In Phillips v. TLC Plumbing, Inc., a California Court of Appeal addressed the issue of negligent hiring and retention. One of TLC’s employees had been convicted for domestic violence and arson involving his former wife. TLC learned this about the employee when it hired him. The employee struck up a relationship with a customer while on a service call to her house. TLC terminated the employee a month later for misuse of a company vehicle, drug and alcohol use, and threatening a coworker. The terminated employee and the woman, however, became romantically involved and continued their relationship after the employee’s termination. Approximately two years after his termination from TLC, the former employee shot and killed the woman. The woman’s family then sued TLC for negligent hiring and retention.
TLC argued that it did not owe any duty of care to the plaintiff, because the murder had occurred two years after TLC terminated the employee. The California Appellate Court agreed, finding that “[B]ecause the employer-employee relationship ends on termination of an employee’s employment, we conclude an employer does not owe a plaintiff a duty of care in a negligent hiring and retention action for an injury or harm inflicted by a former employee on the plaintiff even though that former employee, as in this case, initially met the plaintiff while employed by the employer.”
