## Facts

- McKinley Wise, a supervisor at Mrs. Baird’s Bakery, was attacked and severely injured by Meredith Turner while Turner was working at the bakery.
- Turner was a temporary worker supplied to the bakery by Complete Staffing Services, Inc., which employed Turner.
- The Wises sued Staffing for negligent and grossly negligent hiring, alleging Staffing failed to adequately investigate Turner’s criminal background and credentials.
- The Wises also claimed Staffing had a “special relationship” with Turner that created duties to supervise Turner and to warn the bakery about Turner’s criminal history.
- The Wises asserted negligence per se based on the Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act (without identifying a specific statutory subsection).
- On appeal, the Wises primarily relied on a voluntary-undertaking theory: Staffing undertook a criminal background check on Turner but performed it negligently (allegedly by limiting it to one county and missing other criminal history).
- The trial court granted Staffing a take-nothing summary judgment on all claims.

## Issues

1. Whether a staffing company that voluntarily undertakes a criminal background check owes a duty to perform that check with reasonable care, such that an allegedly deficient check can support negligent hiring.
2. Whether Staffing owed any broader duty to investigate, supervise, or warn based on a “special relationship” or foreseeability of Turner’s criminal act.
3. Whether Staffing could be liable for negligence per se under the Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act.

## Decision

- The court affirmed in part and reversed in part the summary judgment.
- The court reversed and remanded the negligent-hiring claim to the extent it was based on alleged negligent performance of a voluntarily undertaken criminal background check, holding the record raised a fact issue precluding summary judgment.
- The court affirmed summary judgment rejecting theories based on an alleged “special relationship” and any expanded duty to supervise or warn.
- The court affirmed summary judgment on negligence per se, finding no evidence Staffing operated as an investigations or security company covered by the statute.

## Legal Principles

- When material facts are undisputed, whether a duty exists is a question of law.
- Texas law does not impose a general duty on employers, including staffing agencies, to obtain employees’ criminal records absent special circumstances.
- Under the voluntary-undertaking doctrine, once a party undertakes to perform a background investigation, it must use reasonable care in performing that undertaking; negligent performance can supply the duty element for negligent hiring and can defeat summary judgment if fact issues exist.
- A “special relationship” imposing a broad duty to protect third parties from an employee’s independent criminal act is not established by ordinary employment/placement arrangements without additional facts showing a sufficiently foreseeable risk.
- Negligence per se requires a statute applicable to the defendant and conduct at issue; a plaintiff must identify a statutory basis, and the record must support that the statute governs the defendant’s activities.

## Conclusion

The court held Staffing had no general or special-relationship-based duty to protect the bakery from Turner’s assault and was not subject to negligence per se under the private-investigator statute, but it could be liable if it negligently performed a criminal background check it chose to undertake, requiring trial-level proceedings on that limited negligent-hiring theory.


Wise v. Complete Staffing Servs., Inc., 56 S.W.3d 900 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2001)