Ruppe v. City of Los Angeles

OLNEY, J.

The defendants may be considered as one for the purposes of discussion, and that one the city of Los Angeles. From a judgment against it for five hundred dollars, had after a trial without a jury, the city appeals.

The complaint alleges and the court finds that the defendant was engaged in the business of supplying electric energy for light and power to its inhabitants, and had in its employ as a meter-setter one Nealon; that Nealon, with certain fellow-employees of the city, was sent by it to wire a certain building and set meters therein so that electric energy might be furnished by the city in the building; that the plaintiff was in charge of the building and attempted to prevent Nealon and his fellow-workmen from entering and doing the work they had been sent to do; and that Nealon, in order to force his way into a certain portion of the building for the purpose of there doing some work, assaulted the plaintiff, inflicting personal injuries upon her. For these injuries a recovery was sought by the complaint and allowed by the judgment appealed from.

[1]

The evidence as to the commission of the assault was conflicting and the finding of the trial court upon that issue is conclusive and is not attacked. The chief contention of the city is that upon the facts alleged and upon the evidence it is not liable for the assault. Its point is that it is not alleged, and the evidence does not show, that the assault was authorized by the city; that, in fact, the evidence

[402]

shows without contradiction that it was contrary to Nealon’s express instructions. It is, however, wholly immaterial whether or not the assault was authorized by the city, or was committed by Nealon in violation of his instructions. It is plain enough that it was committed by him in the course of doing that which he had been sent to the building by the city to do and in furtherance of its doing; that it was, in other words, an act done by him in the course of his employment.

[2]

The rule is elementary that a master is responsible for the acts of his servant done in the course of his employment, even though those acts be unauthorized or contrary to the master’s explicit instructions. As between the master and third persons, the acts of the servant done as a part of the doing of that which he is employed to do are as if done by the master himself, and the question of authority as between the master and servant to do the particular acts is quite immaterial. (Cooley on Torts, 3d ed., pp. 1016-1030; Civ. Code, sec. 2338;