## Facts

- Kenneth Partridge rented furniture and appliances from Bestway Rentals, Inc. under a rent-to-own agreement.
- Partridge fell behind on payments and became delinquent on the rental contracts.
- Bestway employees Bernard Harvey and Billy Voss went to Partridge’s home to repossess the delinquent rental items.
- Partridge was not home when Harvey and Voss arrived.
- Partridge alleged Harvey and Voss broke into his home without permission, removed Bestway’s rental items, and also took other items owned by Partridge.
- Partridge sued Bestway, Harvey, and Voss, seeking $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1,000,000 in punitive damages, and alleged Bestway was responsible for its employees’ acts.
- Harvey and Voss were never served and did not answer the complaint; Bestway appeared and defended.
- Bestway argued it did not authorize unauthorized entry and that any break-in or theft was outside the employees’ course and scope of employment, and an unforeseeable, superseding event.
- The Sunflower County Circuit Court granted summary judgment to Bestway.
- Partridge moved to set aside the summary judgment order; the trial court denied the motion and later denied a second motion, even after Partridge submitted police reports related to the alleged break-in.

## Issues

1. Whether the circuit court erred in granting summary judgment to Bestway where Partridge’s evidence created genuine issues of material fact on Bestway’s vicarious liability for Harvey and Voss’s alleged break-in and taking of property during a repossession attempt.
2. Whether, on this summary-judgment record, the employees’ alleged criminal conduct connected to repossessing delinquent rental items could be found by a jury to fall within the course and scope of their employment, making summary judgment improper.

## Decision

- The Mississippi Court of Appeals reviewed the grant of summary judgment de novo.
- Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Partridge as the nonmoving party, the court found genuine issues of material fact regarding Bestway’s responsibility for the employees’ acts.
- The court held the circuit court erred in granting summary judgment to Bestway.
- The judgment was reversed, and the case was remanded for a trial on the merits.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is appropriate only when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law; the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant.
- On appeal, a grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo.
- Under respondeat superior, an employer may be liable for an employee’s torts when the employee acts within the course and scope of employment; whether conduct falls within that scope is often a jury question when the facts permit competing inferences.
- An employee’s intentional or criminal acts do not automatically remove conduct from the scope of employment as a matter of law when the acts are tied to assigned work (here, repossession activity); on an adequate record, the connection between the job task and the challenged conduct may present triable fact disputes.
- Arguments that the employees’ conduct was a superseding cause cutting off employer liability may depend on fact determinations that cannot be resolved on summary judgment where the record supports more than one reasonable view.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for Bestway because the summary-judgment record left disputed fact questions about whether Bestway’s employees, sent to repossess delinquent rental items, acted within the course and scope of their employment when they allegedly broke into Partridge’s home and took property, requiring a trial rather than dismissal as a matter of law.


Partridge v. Harvey, 805 So. 2d 668 (2002)