Respondeat superior: What does it mean for Alaska Airlines?
A number of bloggers have brought up the issue of respondeat superior which is Latin for “let the master answer” with regard to the case of the nasty comments which were allegedly posted on Jeremy Hermanns’ blog by Alaska Airlines employees. The legal concept - which is well supported by precedent - holds employers responsible for the actions of their employees when they are acting within the scope of their duties. Some bloggers have brought up the concept to explain why they think that Alaska could be in some legal hot water.
To shed some light on this and other areas of interest in the case, I’ve scheduled an interview for tomorrow afternoon with Greg Schwartz - a Seattle attorney who specializes in such matters - for a special edition of our new podcast The Blog Business Summit Report [XML].
I would like to give BBS readers the opportunity to post questions for Mr. Schwartz here prior to our interview. Please, get involved in the conversation.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
If the commenter who posted from an Alaska Airlines IP works in the PR department, does that make their comments an “official” response?
Thank you for your invite to comment on this issue and to ask questions.
The issues I think should be tackled on this subject are:
1) Whether or not Alaska Airlines did indeed have an employee or contractor put those nasty comments on Jeremy’s blog? (Fact vs. Fiction - are we making a mountain out of this?)
2) If they did, should Alaska Airlines be held responsible under the legal angle “respondeat superior” and penalized?
3) What penalties should Alaska Airlines get for “sponsorship” of such comments on blogs? How will this impact corporate bloggers who comment on other blogs as well as company employees? Will there be new terms added to the employment contract to protect companies from people who comment on blogs?
4) Will “respondeat superior” become the new term for comment spam for bloggers in 2006?
5) What actions/responsibilities/steps do bloggers need to take to learn more, fight against it, and how to handle it?
Is this the beginning of legal action against comment spammers? Do we now need to investigate every suspicious comment spam’s IP to track down the responsible “parent” and target them? How does this change blogging for the Blogosphere? Most importantly, how should this change how I blog? Does it? Do I have some kind of responsibility for comment spammers or will a bigger group step in and help to protect me, the blogger, from corporate comment spam? Personally, I’d be happy if they cracked down harder on comment spammers from sex, casino, and drug groups.
Determining who is an “official representative” and “off duty” when they comment is also judged by what they say not just who their boss is, so this is indeed a complex case if it is accurate that it was indeed an employee who commented during business hours or acted as a representative following orders.
Interesting topic. Good luck!
ok, this is unrelated, but if you have time, please ask him if he watches Law & Order re-runs and if he agrees that the show is too prosecutor focused and if he thinks A.D.A. Serena Southerlyn (the perkier, but still icy blonde) can act.
And to the point of Respondeat superior, do the bloggers expect that a defense lawyer would attempt to subpoena an annonymous employee based only on an IP addressed for calling Jeremy a pussy?
Thanks for stopping by Teresa. First, I think you misunderstand my stance on the Alaska Airlines issue - I am not a knee jerk PR blogger that screams like Chicken Little that everyone needs to blog (I’ll leave that to others who seem to misunderstand blogs while positioning themselves as blogging leaders). My stance is that companies need to be aware of blogs, not to set up a blog since not everyone needs to blog. I’m pretty much on the record for that one.
As for whether or not the commenters are employees of Alaska, for the purpose of my post I was going with the possibility that they are employees, to make a point that corporations need to be aware of what employees are doing. I know other bloggers that are getting internal documents and emails for their blogs, and the false sense of anonymity does lead people to be more out there with comments.
As for questions for the attorney - last year, I interviewed the general counsel from the New York Times about libel and now I just look too prescient for bringing up the issue. But, one thing I did not ask is the liability for comments to both the blogger and how far can companies go in tracking down who is saying what in comments, such as Junipers lawsuit against the John Does for comments on a message board (and, I believe, blogs). For example, as I understand it this site was sued for the comments posted there, and won. Are we going to see more and more such lawsuits? How liable are we as bloggers for what our readers say?
I agree that we need to understand how liable bloggers are for what readers say.
I think there are two issues. Reader legitimate comments and comment spam, which if it goes through comment spam filters and ends up on our blogs, is it our responsibility to one, delete it manually, and/or two, be held responsible for something not created by a human but by a human driven program? Makes things a little more complicated.
Some comment spam I get is really inflammatory on two of my blogs, talking about topics totally unrelated to the topic at hand. Still, am I responsible for comment spam?
Another issue that I think is important is determining that if the commenter did not work for the company but faked his IP address to reflect the company’s. What are the possible prosecutions for faking IP addresses? Are there any? Should there be?
We are still living in the Age of Litigation and I will be so thrilled when we grow out of it and hold ourselves more responsible than just blaming everyone else. But part of a society’s growth process is to teach self-reliance and self-determination by catching the evil and making them set an example of how NOT to act.
I read a long time ago a story about a boy who got into trouble all the time and the father said, “He’s a good boy, he really is. It’s just that I spend so much time teaching how to do things, I forget to teach him what not to do.”
Splendid idea, Teresa! Don’t forget to blog some *text* about the interview too, for those of us that don’t “do” the audio thing.:-)
Speaking of audio, The Blog Business Summit Reports (iTunes link) are now available in the iTunes Podcasts directory!
Hi Everyone,
The interview with Greg Schwartz went really well today. I’ve got a lot of audio to sift through and edit - but will have it up as soon as possible. I asked a lot of your questions and got some good, solid answers.
I’m looking forward to sharing the podcast with you. Thanks for participating.
-Teresa
Respondeat Superior is a legal rule that the principal or employer is liable for harm done by agents or employees while acting within the scope of their employment. Jurisdictions in the United States have long recognized this legal standard. The legal theory holds that when one is acting within the scope of one’s employment, the employer may be held accountable for the acts of the employee with respect to third parties. In general, an injured third party has the right to sue either employer or employee if it can be proven that the defendant who was responsible for the injury was acting as an employee and not as an independent contractor.
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Alice mark
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