Employer Liable For Torts of Employees if in Course and Scope of Employment and Not for Personal Reasons

The Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled in Peterson v. Brannigan Bros Restaurants that an employer may be held liable for the tortious conduct of an employee so long as that conduct was “committed in the course and within the scope of the employee’s employment,” but not if the act was outside the employee’s authority or committed for the employee’s own personal purposes. “While the issue of whether the employee was acting within the scope of his employment is generally for the trier of fact, the issue may be decided as a matter of law where it is clear that the employee was acting to accomplish some purpose of his own.”