Magee v. Harris, No. 20-2590 (8th Cir. 2021)
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After defendant injured plaintiff while defendant was driving a vehicle owned by the US Postal Service, plaintiff filed suit against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) and against defendant for negligence under Missouri law. The district court dismissed plaintiff's federal claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's state-law claim against defendant.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed, concluding that plaintiff failed to establish that defendant was acting within the scope of his employment during the time of the accident under Missouri law. In this case, the Postal Service's written policies support a finding that defendant's deviation from his postal route was unauthorized and the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendant violated the Postal Service's policies when he left his route for twenty-five minutes to purchase dog food for a friend, deliver the dog food at a location where he had already delivered mail, and take a break with his friend. Therefore, defendant was not acting within the scope of his employment during the deviation, and the deviation was neither slight nor incidental. Finally, whether defendant's conduct was within the scope of his employment is unrelated to the merits question of whether his conduct was negligent. The court explained that the scope of the employment in FTCA cases is a threshold jurisdictional question for the court, rather than the jury, to decide.
Court Description: [Colloton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Erickson, Circuit Judge] Civil case - Federal Tort Claims Act. At the time defendant, a Postal Service employee, was involved in an accident with plaintiff's decedent, he was not acting within the scope of his employment as he was engaged in an unauthorized deviation from his mail route and the deviation was neither slight nor incidental; scope of employment in FTCA cases is a threshold jurisdictional question for the court, not a jury, to decide.
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