## Facts

- Lisa M., a 19-year-old pregnant woman, went to a hospital emergency room after a fall.
- Emergency physicians ordered obstetrical and upper-right-quadrant ultrasound imaging.
- A hospital ultrasound technician performed an initial legitimate scan in a private examination room while Lisa remained on a gurney with clothing adjusted to permit the exam.
- Under the pretense of continuing the ultrasound procedure, the technician sexually molested Lisa.
- Lisa initially believed the conduct was medically related, later recognized it as improper after consulting her obstetrician, and reported it.
- The technician later entered a no contest plea to a felony.
- Lisa sued the technician and the hospital, asserting tort claims including battery and emotional distress; the question on review concerned only the hospital’s vicarious liability absent negligent hiring or supervision.

## Issues

1. Whether the hospital could be held vicariously liable under respondeat superior for an ultrasound technician’s sexual assault of a patient.
2. Whether the assault occurred within the “scope of employment” because the technician’s duties involved patient contact, physical proximity, and privacy.
3. Whether the scope-of-employment question could be resolved as a matter of law on summary judgment on undisputed facts.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and reinstated summary judgment for the hospital.
- The Court held the hospital was not vicariously liable because the technician’s sexual assault was outside the scope of employment as a matter of law.
- The Court concluded the assault was a personal act for sexual gratification and not a generally foreseeable consequence of the technician’s assigned duties.
- The Court distinguished precedent imposing vicarious liability for abuse of coercive police authority, finding no comparable job-created coercive power inherent in an ultrasound technician’s role.
- The Court held that where undisputed facts permit only one conclusion on scope of employment, the issue is for the court, not a jury.

## Legal Principles

- An employer is vicariously liable for an employee’s torts only if committed within the scope of employment; even willful or criminal acts may qualify if sufficiently connected to the work.
- The scope-of-employment test centers on whether the tort is a generally foreseeable consequence of the enterprise—i.e., a typical or broadly incidental risk of the employer’s business—rather than on authorization or employer benefit.
- Employment that merely provides the time, place, or opportunity for a purely personal tort does not, without more, bring the conduct within the scope of employment.
- Respondeat superior serves enterprise-risk allocation and deterrence only when the injury-producing conduct is a characteristic risk of the business; it is not a general compensation scheme for all workplace harms.
- Summary judgment is proper on respondeat superior when undisputed facts show no reasonable trier of fact could find the tort was engendered by the employment.

## Conclusion

The court held that a hospital was not vicariously liable for an ultrasound technician’s sexual assault of a patient because the misconduct was a purely personal deviation and not a foreseeable, broadly incidental risk of providing ultrasound services, making the scope-of-employment issue resolvable as a matter of law.


Lisa M. v. Henry Mayo Newhall Mem'l Hosp., 12 Cal. 4th 291 (1995)