| Landlord Found Negligent in Tenant's Rape A Minnesota landlord was found negligent in hiring a resident manager who raped a tenant. Although the manager had a criminal record, he was furnished with passkeys to tenant's apartments. In it’s ruling, the Minnesota Court defined the following aspects of the law: Negligent Hiring. Negligent hiring is an independent cause of action; in other words, it constitutes the basis for a legal claim by an injured party. Duty of care. Employers have a duty to exercise reasonable care in hiring individuals who, because of the type of employment and amount of contact with the public, may pose a threat of injury to members of the public. Foreseeability. The employer need not have foreseen the plaintiff’s particular injury (i.e., rape), but the landlord had reason to anticipate that its employee, with a history of violent crime, might well commit another violent crime, even if this crime wasn’t identical to the employee’s previous offenses. Therefore, the employee’s rape of the tenant was foreseeable. Reasonable investigation. Although employers have no independent affirmative duty to investigate an applicant’s criminal record, such an investigation is a reasonable precaution if other factors validate it. Because the employee’s application contained only a three-month work history and listed only two relatives as work references, an inquiry into these facts would have alerted a careful employer into making a reasonable investigation of a possible criminal record. Employers breach their duty of care when, despite suspicious facts on an employee’s application, they fail to make a proper investigation. Cause. The landlord’s negligent hiring was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries. This conclusion was based on the fact that the manager, who had a criminal record for assault and night prowling and two and a half months of psychiatric care in a hospital, was furnished with a passkey to tenants’ apartments. |
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