Bye Case

In the case of Hardwicke v. American Boychoir School, the Supreme Court of New Jersey had to decide whether the school could be held liable for the intentional torts of its music director, Mr. Hanson who repeatedly sexually abused John Hardwicke, a minor resident student at the school. Hardwicke claimed that as an employer, the school should be held vicariously liable for Hanson’s intentional torts under the doctrine of respondeat superior. The important question in this case is whether the school should be held liable for Hanson’s actions. My position is that the school should be held liable because they delegated authority to Hanson, which he then used to injure the plaintiff.

The school had no prior knowledge of Hanson’s acts. Also it did not condone Hanson’s acts nor ignore them. The school could still be held liable vicariously, if the acts were committed in the scope of employment. In this case, even though Hanson and the student were at the school and spending most of their time there, Hanson’s acts should be considered outside of the scope of employment since they were not incidental to educating the boys at the school.

However, the school could still be held liable under the aided-in-the agency doctrine if the employee exercised authority conferred by or assets provided by the employer (Bagley & Savage, 2010) In this case, both of these conditions appear to be met. As music director, Hanson was provided a high degree of authority over Hardwicke and the other students. Hanson could grant or withhold privileges to students and could administer punishments to students.