[SCA-AE] The Settlement, etc.

[Erik Hansen]

> Thanks, Lima, but this is what I'm still not understanding.  I'm not trying to take sides one way or the other.  I'm just not understanding how the actions of an indivual that happen on his own property and on his own time can be seen to taint *any* group to which the man belongs.

(I apologize because I think this answer is going to pop through twice
because I messed up my reply to on the first try)

http://www.soloffandzervanos.com/pdf/5.5.07%20Complaint.pdf

Torts and agency law aren't my specialty, but based on my reading of
the complaint, I'm not surprised the SCA considered a settlement.
(Keep in mind my reading is based on generalist classes in law school,
despite being licensed there, I'm not up to date with the
peculiarities of Pennsylvania's tort and agency law.  Also, I focused
on agency law with regard to contracts, but liability for harms
(torts) is at the heart of many of the defining cases of agency law).

In this context, agency means authorizing someone to act on your
behalf.  "Cloaking them with your authority" was a favorite phrase of
my instructor.

If I'm recalling my agency law correctly, the SCA could be found
liable if its actions would make a reasonable 3rd party believe that a
particular person represents it in a given set of actions, even it in
no way actually authorized that person to do so.

For the example at hand, if the SCA puts someone in charge of holding
classes for kids, it actually may be fairly hard for the SCA to limit
its liability if that person chooses to offer classes "on the side"
because it may be easy for a reasonable, but uninformed 3rd party to
believe the classes "on the side" were also sponsored by the SCA.

None of this is a guarantee that if a trial was held, the SCA would
have been found to be liable.  However these issues may have
influenced the decision that was made.


Asbjorn