## Facts

- Margaret Adams, a subway passenger, waited in line at a token booth and asked the clerk for directions after purchasing fare.
- The clerk responded with verbal abuse; Adams walked away and attempted to pass through the turnstile.
- The clerk assaulted Adams from behind, pushing her to the ground and choking her.
- A companion summoned help and a bystander pulled the clerk off Adams.
- Adams alleged physical and emotional injuries.
- Adams sued the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), asserting (among other theories) negligent hiring/training/supervision and breach of a common carrier duty to transport passengers free from employee “insults or assaults.”

## Issues

1. Whether NYCTA, as a common carrier, may be held vicariously liable for an employee’s unprovoked assault on a passenger when the assault was indisputably outside the scope of employment.
2. Whether a common carrier’s duty to protect passengers from employee misconduct functions as strict liability for employee assaults regardless of scope of employment.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division’s order dismissing Adams’s remaining claim.
- The court held that the older rule imposing common-carrier liability for employee torts regardless of scope of employment is no longer viable.
- Because the token clerk’s assault was indisputably outside the scope of employment, NYCTA had no vicarious liability on that theory.
- Adams’s direct-liability theories (e.g., negligent hiring, training, supervision, or acquiescence) had been dismissed for lack of support and did not provide a basis for recovery.

## Legal Principles

- Vicarious liability for a common carrier is governed by ordinary respondeat superior principles, including the requirement that the employee’s tort be within the scope of employment.
- A carrier’s heightened duty of care to passengers does not convert the carrier into an insurer against all intentional assaults by employees acting for purely personal reasons and unrelated to the employer’s business.
- A carrier’s obligation to provide transportation “free from insults or assaults” is read consistently with modern tort doctrine and does not impose liability for employee conduct indisputably outside the scope of employment.

## Conclusion

New York’s highest court refused to impose vicarious liability on a transit authority for a token clerk’s unprovoked assault on a passenger where the assault was outside the scope of employment, limiting common-carrier liability to modern respondeat superior rules absent supported direct-negligence claims.


Adams v. N.Y.C. Transit Auth., 88 N.Y.2d 116, 666 N.E.2d 216 (N.Y. 1996)