Controlling Statute

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Controlling Statute
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Controlling Statute

• Now you are ready to explore employer vicarious
  liability in more detail and retrieve relevant
  primary law.
• The next step is often searching more detailed
  secondary sources or case law, but another option
  is to see if there is a controlling Louisiana
  statute.
• Because you have learned the terms of art that
  are often used when referring to this issue, a
  Natural Language search in the Louisiana Statutes
  Annotated database (LA-ST-ANN) on Westlaw may be
  a good way to find relevant statutory law.

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• The Natural Language search method allows you to
  use plain English to retrieve relevant
  documents. Just enter a description of your issue
  and Westlaw will display the documents that best
  match the concepts in your description.
• Natural Language searching is often an most
  effective way to search annotated statutory
  databases because
• The text of a statute is often obscurely worded
  by the legislature and the flexible nature of
  Natural Language can ignore search words that do
  not appear in the document and focus on the
  remaining words.
• The annotations (Notes of Decisions) appended to
  the statute are summaries of case law that have
  interpreted or applied the statute and discuss
  the issue in the more foreseeable language of the
  courts.

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Masters and employers are answerable for the
damage occasioned by their servants and
overseers, in the exercise of the functions in
which they are employed.
2320

• Database LA-ST-ANN
• Search employer vicariously liable for assault
  (intentional act intentional tort) of
  employee
• The first statute displayed is Louisiana Civil
  Code 2320.
• This statute seems to be addressing employers
  vicarious liability and scope of employment, but
  it does not include the terms of art you
  encountered in the print resources.

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Best

• Click the Best arrow to display the portion
  of the document that most closely matches your
  description. In this document, the Best portion
  of the document is in the annotations where the
  more foreseeable language of case law is
  summarized.

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• The brief wording of the statute does not stand
  alone but has been interpreted and applied by
  many courts.
• There are more than one thousand annotations,
  divided into almost two hundred subtopics
  appended to 2320 and many of the subtopics seem
  relevant to your issue.

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• It there were fewer relevant annotations, it
  might be possible to confine your research to the
  full text of the cases summarized in the
  annotations.
• The number of annotations makes it difficult to
  synthesize them into general principals law. You
  will more help.
• In this case, it may be more efficient to search
  for relevant secondary sources that synthesize
  and analyze case law in detail.

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Responsibility for acts of employees

• You would have had a more difficult time if you
  had attempted to find the controlling statute in
  the print statutory index.
• Civil Code 2320 is indexed under LABOR AND
  EMPLOYMENT, under the subtopic of
  Responsibility for acts of employees.
• There is nothing listed under Vicarious liability
  or Scope of employment in the print Index.

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If you are using the print statutes, be sure to
check the pocket part.
C.C. 2320
49.- Physical attack or killing not within the
employment, course and scope of employment
48.- Physical attack or killing within the
employment, course and scope of employment
Pocket parts are periodically issued supplements
that update the text in the bound volume. They
are inserted into a pocket in the back cover of
the bound volume.