Do you know who you are hiring
when you take on a new employee?
Your answer might be, "No, and
besides, what I don't know can't hurt
me." But there is an emerging trend
in the law known as "negligent hiring,"
which says that a lack of
knowledge about your employees
can indeed hurt you — and hurt but
good.
The concept of negligent hiring is
a modified and expanded version of
the doctrine of respondeat superior.
That concept says an employer can
be held liable for wrongful or negligent
actions of an employee if that
worker was acting within the course
of the employment relationship
when the wrongful or negligent act
was performed.
A common example is where an
employee