## Facts

- Donnal L. Lamkin sued Officer Robert Brooks, the Town of Lecompte, and the town’s insurer after Brooks struck Lamkin during a night of repeated police encounters involving suspected intoxication.
- On November 19, 1982, Brooks (on patrol as a Lecompte police officer) first saw Lamkin and family stopped on a highway shoulder; Lamkin declined assistance.
- Soon after, Brooks encountered an argument in a bar parking lot where Lamkin was intoxicated and intended to drive; Brooks warned he would arrest Lamkin for driving while intoxicated but ultimately agreed to allow Lamkin to drive a short distance.
- Later, Brooks responded to a report of intoxicated drivers blocking a highway and again encountered Lamkin; the continuing dispute arose from Brooks’s performance of police duties that night.
- While Brooks was preparing an incident report, Lamkin confronted him; Brooks struck Lamkin, causing serious facial injuries.
- Lamkin asserted the assault occurred outside Lecompte’s territorial limits and sought to hold the town and insurer liable under respondeat superior.

## Issues

1. Whether the Town of Lecompte and its insurer were vicariously liable under Louisiana Civil Code article 2320 for Brooks’s intentional tort.
2. Whether an officer’s act occurring outside municipal territorial limits and involving an intentional blow can still be within the scope of employment for vicarious-liability purposes.
3. Whether the assault was sufficiently connected in time, place, and causation to Brooks’s police duties to constitute a risk attributable to the town’s enterprise.

## Decision

- The Louisiana Supreme Court reversed the lower courts’ dismissal of the Town of Lecompte and its insurer and held them vicariously liable for Brooks’s assault under Civil Code article 2320.
- The court determined the altercation had its roots in Brooks’s on-duty police activity and was closely connected to his employment duties.
- The court rejected territorial jurisdiction as dispositive of scope of employment, emphasizing a functional inquiry focused on the risks generated by the employment situation.
- The increased damages awarded against Brooks by the court of appeal were left undisturbed; liability was extended to include the town and insurer.

## Legal Principles

- Under Louisiana Civil Code article 2320, an employer may be liable for an employee’s intentional tort when the conduct is “so closely connected in time, place, and causation to his employment duties that it constitutes a risk of harm attributable to the employer’s business.”
- Scope-of-employment analysis for vicarious liability does not turn solely on whether the employee had formal legal authority (such as territorial jurisdiction) at the precise location of the act.
- Intentional misconduct may fall within the scope of employment when the employment situation generates the risk and the tort is connected to the employee’s job-related interactions, even if the method used is excessive or abusive.
- Evidence that the parties had no preexisting personal animus supports treating the dispute as arising from the employment-related encounter rather than a private quarrel.

## Conclusion

The court held the town and its insurer responsible for an on-duty officer’s intentional assault because the confrontation arose from and remained closely connected to the officer’s law-enforcement activities, making the risk of harm attributable to the municipal employer under article 2320 despite the officer acting outside town limits.


Lamkin v. Brooks, 498 So. 2d 1068 (La. 1986)