Reported / Citable
Background
Renita Wooten, a warehouse technician for a hospice supply company, alleged that she was injured while assisting a Saia delivery driver with two hospital beds on a wooden pallet. The driver asked Wooten to turn the wheel of a manual pallet jack while he moved the pallet up a concrete ramp with an electric pallet jack. The pallet broke during the move, and Wooten alleged she was immediately injured.
Wooten sued Saia in Texas state court, asserting respondeat superior liability and negligent hiring and training. Saia removed the action on diversity grounds. Wooten abandoned her negligent hiring and training claims in opposing Saia’s summary-judgment motion, leaving only vicarious liability for the driver’s alleged negligence.
The Court’s Holding
Magistrate Judge Christina A. Bryan recommended granting Saia’s motion for summary judgment and dismissing the remaining claim. The recommendation concluded that Wooten had offered no competent evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that the driver acted within the scope of his authority when he recruited her to assist with moving the pallet.
The court rejected Saia’s request to disregard Wooten’s affidavit under the sham-affidavit doctrine, finding the asserted differences from her deposition testimony reconcilable rather than inherently contradictory. But that affidavit did not supply evidence about the driver’s job duties, authority, or whether obtaining Wooten’s assistance fell within the scope of his employment. The recommendation did not reach causation or the parties’ objections to expert and medical evidence.
Key Takeaways
- A plaintiff pursuing respondeat superior must produce evidence that the employee’s allegedly tortious conduct was within the scope of employment.
- A Rule 56 movant may shift the burden by identifying the absence of evidence on a specific essential element, even without submitting affirmative evidence on that element.
- Differences between an affidavit and prior deposition testimony do not justify exclusion unless they are inherently contradictory.
Why It Matters
The recommendation underscores that proof an employee was generally on a work delivery is not, by itself, proof that every allegedly negligent act during that delivery was authorized or within the employee’s general duties. Plaintiffs must develop evidence connecting the challenged conduct to the employee’s authority and the employer’s business.
This was a memorandum and recommendation, not a final district-court ruling; the parties had fourteen days to file objections.