Lancaster County, South Carolina

The Lancaster County Council adopted a resolution on Monday, November 2nd, 2009, which seek to hold County employees liable for negligent damage to County-owned vehicles.

Sounds good, right?  Well, probably not.

As written, the employee would be liable to a maximum of $1,000 per occurrence, and the policy would appear to exclude any other avenue of recovery.

What happens if an employee is driving a County-owned vehicle, is speeding, loses control, and totals the vehicle?  The employee is out a maximum of $1,000 and may lose his or her job, in which case, the County may not even receive the $1,000.  Could the County sue the employee for the negligent loss of the vehicle?  It does not appear so to me.

Even worse, as opposed to a County employee, a volunteer involved in any damage to or loss of a vehicle would have no liability whatsoever, except that the volunteer does not appear to have the same immunity from a lawsuit that appears to be implicit in the resolution in respect to County employees.

The distinction between County employees and volunteers is unlikely to engender good feelings between the two groups.

I suggest that the intent of the resolution is good, but that the implementation may well come back to haunt the Lancaster County Council.  That conclusion seems all too appropriate in light of the fact that the resolution was adopted at the first meeting following Halloween.

# posted by John P. Baker @ 2:08 PM