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Controlling Statute

Controlling Statute. Controlling Statute. Now you are ready to explore employer vicarious liability in more detail and retrieve relevant primary law.

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Controlling Statute

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  1. Controlling Statute

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. “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.

  5. Click theBest 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. Best

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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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