Originally Posted by wackjum

These cases are not as straightforward as it may seem.

In order for the dealership to be liable, the employee had to be either: 1) acting under the scope of his employment; or 2) the dealer knew or should have known the employee would do something like this.

Generally, a party like the dealership is only liable if they owe a duty to the injured party. For example if you're walking in the street and you spot an injured bicyclist, you have no duty to this person and the person cannot sue you for causing his injuries or failing to get help. And that would make sense because you're just some random person. But if you were the driver that hit the bicyclist, you'd have a duty to operate your vehicle carefully, and a duty to stop and render aid. So the driver could be liable to the bicyclist.

Really the only way the dealership can be liable for this event is if the employee had done something like this before, there had been similar incidents, or during the hiring process the dealership should have known this individual would probably do something like this.