Case Law Bonus Post: Vir v. Londo Manufacturing Co.

Outline:

• A corporation is generally charged with knowledge of any facts learned by its agents within the scope of their employment.
• This is especially true in circumstances where the agent:
• In light of his or her role at and duties to the corporation,
• Ought and would reasonably be expected to act upon those facts or communicate his or knowledge of the facts to others at the corporation.
• This rule applies regardless of whether the agent did, in fact, communicate the information to others.

Notes: It probably isn’t immediately obvious how this rule matters for the case this year. Consider what’s happening in this year’s case, though: a corporation is being sued over the actions of its employees. There’s gap in the logic there: how can we hold one entity (the corporation) accountable for what might have been the rogue actions of only part of its employee base? This case helps close that gap, creating a rule that says corporations can be held accountable for what its employees know in the course of their job. That’s especially true, the rule goes on to say, when the employee would be expected to do something with that knowledge because of their job, whether or not they actually did so. This case could be used to argue that, for instance, everything Angel Duncan knew can still be held against the corporation, even though he didn’t communicate all of it to more responsible parties like Hathaway. That might not seem fair: we shouldn’t hold Hathaway accountable for information he didn’t know about. We’re not actually holding Hathaway personally responsible, though; we’re holding the corporation responsible, and the corporation includes both Hathaway and Duncan.