When Are Institutions Responsible for Sexual Abuse?

Institutions are responsible in a sex abuse case when they are negligent. Negligence means that the institution owes what we call a duty, a legal duty, or a responsibility to protect the victim, or in some cases, to control the perpetrator and so, when a institution is negligent then they may be liable in a civil case for the sex abuse that takes place in that situation. There’s also another theory of liability under the law that may hold institution liable and that’s called respondeat superior. Respondeat superior is also known as vicarious liability, it’s legal words, but what it means is that the employer is responsible for something the employee did because it was in what we call the course and scope of employment. Now, we all know that the employers don’t authorize, per se, employees to sexually abuse people, but there are laws that say that when an employer allows an employee to touch a person as part of their job and that person who is touching that person converts that to sexual abuse then the employer may be liable.