## Facts

- Marie Jackson worked for Novell beginning in 1988 as a secretary in the Software Engineering Department.
- Grover P. Righter, a Novell director and Marie’s supervisor, had authority over hiring, evaluation, promotion, discharge, budgets, and employee functions.
- During Marie’s employment, Righter promoted her, allowed her to record unworked overtime, awarded bonuses, and gave personal gifts.
- By late 1990 and into 1991, Righter and Marie engaged in a consensual romantic relationship, including workplace physical affection and meetings outside the office during work hours.
- Marie ended her relationship with Righter around July 1991 and later began a romantic relationship with Clay Wilkes, another Novell employee.
- Jeffrey L. Jackson (Marie’s husband) sued Righter and Wilkes for alienation of affections and related marital-interference and injury claims, and sued Novell and Unix Systems Laboratories, Inc. (doing business as Univel) on theories of vicarious liability and negligent supervision/retention.
- The trial court granted summary judgment to Novell and Univel on all claims against them; claims against Righter and Wilkes remained pending.
- Jackson appealed only the summary judgment in favor of Novell and Univel.

## Issues

1. Whether Novell and Univel were vicariously liable under respondeat superior for Righter’s and Wilkes’s conduct as within the scope of employment.
2. Whether liability could be imposed on Novell and Univel on an apparent-authority theory for Righter’s relationship with Marie.
3. Whether Novell and Univel owed Jackson a duty to supervise or control employees to prevent harm to his marital relationship, supporting negligent supervision/retention claims.

## Decision

- The Utah Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Novell and Univel.
- The court held that the employees’ consensual romantic relationships were outside the scope of employment and not in furtherance of the employers’ business.
- The court rejected apparent authority because there was no reasonable basis to treat the employers as authorizing, and no relevant reasonable reliance on, any purported authority to engage in romantic conduct.
- The court held Novell and Univel owed no duty to Jackson to prevent the alleged alienation of affections; the claimed marital harm was not a reasonably foreseeable risk the employers were required to prevent through supervision or retention decisions.

## Legal Principles

- Respondeat superior requires that the employee’s conduct be in furtherance of the employer’s interests or reasonably incidental to assigned duties; consensual romantic/sexual conduct is not within the scope of employment when it is personal and unrelated to job duties.
- Apparent authority requires manifestations traceable to the principal and reasonable reliance; an employee’s personal romantic conduct is not attributable to the employer absent such manifestations and reliance.
- Negligent supervision/retention requires a duty; employers generally have no duty to monitor or control employees’ consensual workplace relationships to protect third-party spouses’ marital interests because such harms are indirect and not reasonably foreseeable as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed judgment for the corporate employers, concluding that consensual workplace affairs do not create vicarious liability, apparent-authority liability, or a negligence duty to protect a nonemployee spouse from marital harm allegedly resulting from employees’ personal relationships.


Jackson v. Righter, 891 P.2d 1387 (Utah 1995)