CANTON, Ohio (Legal Newsline) - A woman who at least one person said was already having trouble hearing can sue an ambulance company over hearing loss she blames on an accidental siren blast in the parking lot of the McDonald’s where she worked. The decision by an Ohio appeals court found that ambulance personnel may have been acting in the scope of employment when they drove to the restaurant for lunch, although neither one recalls the alleged incident.
Stephanie King sued Emergency Medical Transport in 2018, two years after she said she went into the parking lot of the McDonald’s restaurant in Bellaire, Ohio, for a break. An ambulance pulled into the parking space in front of the wall where she was sitting, King said, and she chatted with the female driver of the vehicle while the male went into the restaurant.
When the male came out with the food, the female got into the vehicle and the ambulance horn sounded for 8-10 seconds, King claimed. She said she put her fingers in her ears but when she went back into the restaurant, she couldn’t hear her own voice and went to the emergency room, where a physician found no damage to her eardrums but advised her to take a day off from work.
King said the male ambulance employee came by later, asked how her hearing was, and said his colleague hit the air horn button by accident. In depositions, both of the EMT employees testified that while they were working for the company on that day, neither had any recollection of setting off the siren in a McDonald’s parking lot or speaking with King.
King said she suffered more than 70% hearing loss from the alleged siren blast, had to get hearing aids and developed balance issues. One of her coworkers said she was losing her hearing before the date of the incident, however.
King sued EMT under the theory of respondeat superior, which holds employers liable for the actions of their workers when they are acting in the scope of employment. The trial court dismissed the case, finding that if the alleged incident occurred, the workers were on a personal errand of no benefit to EMT and thus outside the scope of employment.
Ohio’s Fifth District Court of Appeals, in a Jan. 19 decision, reversed that decision.
On appeal, King argued the paramedics were still on duty even while they were getting lunch, meaning they were still serving the interests of their employer. While employees could choose whether to drive a personal vehicle or an ambulance to get lunch, if they took the ambulance there had to be two paramedics in it.
The appeals court said it wasn’t aware of any Ohio decisions involving the exact facts in this case, but lawsuits over employees using the company car came close. In one case a woman was found not to be in the scope of employment when she got in an accident on the way to pick up her husband at an appointment, even though she planned to meet a client later. In another case, a car salesman lost his argument he was working in the scope of employment when he got into an accident on his day off, driving a demonstrator car emblazoned with dealer advertising.
EMT said the paramedics “were on a purely personal errand” and the company didn’t require them to eat lunch or use an ambulance to get it. There was a kitchen in the station house for them to prepare meals if they needed them.
“If we stopped our analysis upon the above recited facts, we agree it appears that reasonable minds could come to only one conclusion that Swoyer and Thompson were outside the scope of their employment when the alleged incident occurred,” the appeals court said.
But other facts worked in King’s favor, the court continued. The employees worked a 24-hour shift based at the station house and there was no provision on their time sheets for meal breaks. While they could choose whether to drive their own vehicles or an ambulance for lunch, they were required to stay close to the station so they could respond quickly to emergencies, a benefit to both the City of Bellaire and their employer.
Upon review, the court concluded, there are enough facts in dispute that a jury must decide whether they were acting in the scope of employment when the horn allegedly went off.