ABSTRACT
Texas authorities hesitantly rule for – but also stumble against – a particular doctrine of agency law: the rule imposing vicarious liability on a principal for the torts of the agent when, as one authority puts it, ‘actions by the agent with apparent authority constitute the tort or enable the agent to conceal its commission’ (Restatement (Third) of Agency § 7.08 (American Law Institute 2006)).
This paper shows that Texas courts have more or less conceded that the doctrine is part of Texas agency law. But the courts have never explained why. And in each case where the Supreme Court of Texas has brought up the doctrine, the court has found apparent authority absent and refused to discuss the doctrine further. The intermediate appellate courts have followed this lead. Sometimes the doctrine’s application is refused for spurious reasons. The result is that the doctrine might be part of Texas law, but if it is, no one knows what to do with it.
The article proposes that Texas courts firmly embrace the doctrine and base it on sound moral and economic policy. To date, this is the only piece of comprehensive scholarship ever addressing this doctrine of Texas law.
Ricks, Val D, Apparent Authority and Vicarious Liability for Tort in Texas: From Dance to Embrace (June 1, 2023), South Texas Law Review volume 63:1 (2023).
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