Negligent hiring is an employer’s failure to exercise “reasonable” caution when choosing an employee. Increasingly, today, courts are holding employers financially and legally responsible for illegal or violent actions taken by employees against customers or co-workers.
Standards For Negligent Hiring
Negligent hiring has to do with the failure to exercise “reasonable” care in the hiring process. The obvious question then becomes, “what constitutes reasonable care?” Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut standard answer for this question and there is little guidance given to employers at the County, State or Federal level. Basically, when the case is in front of a judge, that judge will make a determination on his or her own.
How To Avoid Negligent Hiring Liability
With the lowering of costs to run a Background Check, employers can be reasonably sure that they are protecting themselves by running Criminal Records Checks, SSN Traces, thoroughly checking references and verifying all other pertinent information about each candidate prior to making a job offer. Employers should talk with a minimum of three businesses or professional references. Employers should also verify all degrees claimed and licenses allegedly conferred. By taking these steps, every employer should be able to clearly show that reasonable care was used in the hiring process.
Negligent Hiring Lawsuits
After driving for a telephone company for only a week, an employee was involved in a traffic accident. The jury learned that the company never saw the employee’s driver’s record which had five traffic tickets within 18 months. They awarded the injured party $550,000.
An Appellate Court awarded $4 million to a woman who was raped by an employee. His employment application indicated no criminal convictions and the employer did not perform a complete background check.
A hospital was found negligent in hiring a kidney transplant coordinator who was unskilled in reading medical charts. As a result, a patient was given a transplant of a cancerous kidney, which resulted in his death.
In 1999, in the state of Massachusetts, Trusted Health Resources was hit with a $26.5 million dollar verdict when one of its home health care aides, hired without a background check, robbed and killed a quadriplegic. It turned out the aide had six prior larceny convictions.