Vicarious Liability for Police Supervisors Research Paper

Vicarious Liability for Police Supervisors - Research Paper Example The law has with considerable forethought, extended the scope of this doctrine to encompass the activities of the police. Thus, senior police officials are under a duty to supervise the activities of their subordinate officers. They are directly liable to the public for the acts of their subordinates (Del Carmen 107). This rule applies even when they authorize, participate, or ratify such acts. These senior officials are also liable, when the act had been committed in their presence and it had been possible for them to prevent it, but they had preferred to remain indifferent. Vicarious liability connotes indirect responsibility for the negligent actions of subordinates. Such conduct could be the outcome of negligence in hiring, training, assignment, supervision, entrustment, or retention (Del Carmen 107). The State laws may render police supervisors liable for the actions affecting subordinates. In general, direct liability tends to be related to the reasons for which employees could be reassigned, suspended, demoted, or dismissed from service. The provisions of Title 42 Section 1983 are generally invoked, in order to render a police supervisor directly liable to the public (Del Carmen 107). ... In addition, these police supervisors have to enhance their awareness regarding the actions and competencies of their subordinates. As such, police supervisors should recommence the fundamental tasks of continually supervising, teaching, updating, and controlling their subordinates. This will prevent to a major extent, the various civil rights actions that tend to be undertaken on a regular basis against the actions of the police. In the contemporary world, there has been a tremendous increase and development in technologies related to computers, the Internet and communications (Grossman). Consequently, the cost of providing refresher courses and documentation on a continual basis should not exceed the cost of a legal action for failure of the municipality to provide proper training and adequate supervision, with regard to its law enforcement officers (Grossman). In Suders v Easton, the plaintiff was a police communications operator, who resigned from her post without officially info rming the police department of her having been subjected to sexual harassment. Subsequently, she sued the police department for sexual harassment in violation of Title VII. Her contention was that her resignation was tantamount to a constructive discharge (Bass 195). The Third Circuit ruled that a constructive discharge on account of sexual harassment by a supervisor was a tangible employment action. This ruling effectively precluded the police department’s affirmative defense to vicarious liability. Such an affirmative defense can be resorted to when the sexual harassment does not lead to a tangible employment action (Bass 195). However, this important ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania State Police v Suders. The reason