## Facts

- Burns International Security Services employed Gloria Swenson as a security guard assigned to Gate 4 at the Geneva Steel Plant in Orem, Utah.
- Gate 4 guards worked continuous eight-hour shifts with no scheduled breaks, but Burns permitted unscheduled 10–15 minute lunch and restroom breaks.
- The Frontier Cafe, located directly across the street about 150–250 yards from Gate 4, was effectively the only nearby food source reachable within the permitted break time; its menu was posted at the Gate 4 station.
- Guards were generally expected to eat at their posts, whether they brought food or obtained it from the cafe.
- During her shift, Swenson telephoned an order to the Frontier Cafe and drove her personal car to pick up soup, intending to return promptly to Gate 4 to eat at her post.
- While returning from the cafe to the plant area, Swenson’s car collided with a motorcycle ridden by Jeff Christensen and Kyle James Fausett, injuring them.
- Christensen and Fausett sued Swenson for negligence and sought to hold Burns vicariously liable under respondeat superior.

## Issues

1. Whether reasonable jurors could differ on whether Swenson was acting within the scope of her employment when the collision occurred, making summary judgment for Burns improper.
2. Whether Swenson’s brief, employer-permitted trip to obtain food across the street during her shift could satisfy Utah’s three-part scope-of-employment test.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court reversed summary judgment for Burns and remanded.
- The court held that genuine disputes of material fact existed on each element of Utah’s scope-of-employment test, so the question was for the trier of fact.
- The court rejected a rule treating off-premises location or a “personal errand” label as dispositive for scope of employment.

## Legal Principles

- Under respondeat superior, an employer is liable for an employee’s torts committed within the scope of employment.
- Utah’s scope-of-employment test requires evidence that: (1) the conduct is of the general kind the employee was hired to perform; (2) it occurs substantially within work hours and ordinary spatial boundaries; and (3) it is motivated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the employer.
- “Ordinary spatial boundaries” are context-dependent and not limited to formal property lines; proximity and work-related practicality may matter.
- Acts with mixed personal and work-related motivations may fall within the scope of employment if there is some intent to serve the employer.
- Scope-of-employment determinations are commonly fact-bound; summary judgment is proper only when the evidence supports a single conclusion.

## Conclusion

Because the record supported competing inferences about whether an employer-tolerated, brief trip to the only nearby food source during an authorized break was sufficiently connected in kind, time/place, and purpose to the guard’s job, the Utah Supreme Court held the scope-of-employment issue could not be resolved as a matter of law and must be decided by the factfinder.


Christensen v. Swenson, 874 P.2d 125 (Utah 1994)