## Facts

- A customer purchased a mattress and box spring from a retailer, with delivery arranged through an independent delivery company and a small C.O.D. balance due on delivery.
- The customer’s sister, Corene Lyon, remained at the apartment to accept delivery and inspect the items.
- A deliveryman employed by the delivery company entered the apartment using delivery documentation reflecting his delivery assignment.
- A dispute arose about performance of the delivery: whether the items would be carried upstairs for inspection and whether payment could be made by check rather than cash.
- During the dispute, the deliveryman threatened Lyon and then raped her at knifepoint, also inflicting cuts.
- Lyon brought a civil action against the delivery company and the retailer; the deliveryman was not served in the civil case.
- A jury found for Lyon and awarded damages against both corporate defendants, but the trial court later entered judgment notwithstanding the verdict for both.
- Lyon appealed, principally challenging the setting aside of the verdict against the delivery company.

## Issues

1. Whether the delivery company could be held vicariously liable under respondeat superior for its employee’s assault and rape when the attack followed immediately from a job-related dispute about delivery and payment.
2. Whether the retailer could be held liable for the deliveryman’s conduct where delivery was performed by an independent contractor.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the judgment notwithstanding the verdict as to the delivery company and reinstated the jury’s verdict against it.
- The court held that the case, though near the outer limits of respondeat superior, presented a scope-of-employment question that the jury could reasonably resolve for the plaintiff.
- The court affirmed the judgment in favor of the retailer.

## Legal Principles

- An employer may be vicariously liable for an employee’s intentional tort, including serious criminal violence, when the tort is an outgrowth of friction or dispute arising from the employee’s assigned duties.
- Foreseeability for scope-of-employment purposes does not require that the employer anticipate the specific form of violence; it is enough that the employment predictably places the employee in situations where job-related disputes with customers may precipitate violence.
- An employee’s ability to gain access to a victim’s premises by virtue of employment may support a finding that the employment created the opportunity and context for the tort.
- Whether an intentional assault was job-related or purely personal is commonly a jury question; a verdict should not be displaced by judgment notwithstanding the verdict where reasonable jurors could find the conduct sufficiently connected to the employment.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated the verdict against the delivery company because the rape could reasonably be found to have grown out of a dispute over delivery performance and payment—matters within the employee’s assigned work—making vicarious liability a proper question for the jury, while leaving the retailer’s judgment intact.


Lyon v. Carey, 533 F.2d 649 (D.C. Cir. 1976)