04-02-09 Laurie & Gregory Riley v. John Keenan, et als.
A-6054-06T3
The issue in this automobile negligence action is whether
an employer may be held liable for injuries to a third party
caused by an intoxicated driver acting outside the workplace and
outside the scope of his employment. Even assuming the
employee's work-related sleep deprivation, as claimed by
plaintiff, we see no reason to extend the notion of duty to, or
create a new theory of recovery against, an employer in
circumstances where the employer neither knew nor had control
over its employee's "incapacity", nor engaged in any affirmative
act to worsen the situation, and where the independent
intervening act of the employee's intoxication broke any causal
connection between work fatigue and the ensuing automobile
accident.
