Sciortino v. Alfano’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

7 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 8 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “The sheriff, and not the state, hires and fires deputies, exercises direct and indirect supervision and control over them, fixes their time and place of work, and generally allocates their responsibility and assigns their duties. Although the money for the operation of the various sheriffs' departments may come from various sources of public funds (primarily fees as tax collector and in civil and criminal matters), the sheriffs disburse the allocated funds and actually pay most of the salaries of the deputies with these funds. No one but the sheriff can realistically be viewed as the employer of the deputies. Whether the sheriff is the appropriate governmental entity on which to impose liability for the employment-related torts of the deputy sheriff is a more difficult question. The doctrine of respondeat superior is based on the rationale that the enterprise should pay for damages caused by one who is acting in furtherance of the enterprise. Here, there is no enterprise. The deputy on duty is acting in furtherance of the public good, and the damages caused by those actions of the deputy should be paid by public funds. The Legislature, in enacting Act 318 of 1978, has clearly indicated its intention that governmental responsibility for torts committed by a public employee should be placed on the public officer most closely related to the tortfeasor. The Legislature also removed the previous statutory immunity enjoyed by the sheriff. Moreover, as noted in the discussion of the”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 542 So. 2d 145 - Nall v. Parish of Iberville