Wednesday, September 23, 2026
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Suit Against County Over Deputy Spying on Teenager Revived
C.A. Opinion Says Employee’s Misuse of Locality’s Records System Was Sufficiently Foreseeable for Purposes of Vicarious Liability to Withstand Summary Judgment Even if Policy Was Breached for Purely Personal Reasons
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has reversed a summary judgment in favor of the County of San Diego in a case seeking to hold the locality responsible for a former sheriff’s deputy having unlawfully accessed records—including contact information—of a teenager who accused him of groping her while she waited in line at a restaurant.
Rejecting the view that the locality is not vicariously liable to a woman, denominated “Jane Doe,” for misuse by its ex-employee, Timothy Wilson, of the records system because the actions were outside the course and scope of his employment, the court opined in an unpublished opinion by Acting Presiding Terry B. Justice, filed Monday:
“The trial court concluded Wilson’s tortious conduct was not within the scope of his employment because his motivation for accessing Doe’s file was not related to his employment. That reasoning conflates motive with the scope of employment inquiry. Personal motivation does not, by itself, defeat respondeat superior liability….The relevant inquiry is whether there exists a sufficient causal nexus between the employee’s conduct and the employment enterprise.”
O’Rourke went on to say:
“A reasonable jury could infer from th[e] evidence that reviewing investigative reports outside one’s assigned cases was not an aberrational use of the system but one contemplated by the County’s operational practices. From this evidence, a reasonable jury could conclude Wilson’s act of accessing Doe’s investigative file was reasonably related to the tasks he was employed to perform.”
2018 Assault
The question arose after a March 2018 incident in which a man grabbed a then-14-year-old girl’s buttocks from behind while she waited to place an order at a Vista-area Panda Express location. Following the encounter, Doe, together with her mother, reported the incident to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
After investigators obtained video surveillance footage that showed that the perpetrator was, a deputy with the county’s detention facilities, the agency arrested Wilson, who was off duty at the time of the assault. According to Doe, Wilson used his position with the county to access Doe’s investigative file in the two months between the incident and his arrest, downloading photographs of the teenager and gaining access to private information.
She filed a complaint against the county in 2019, alleging:
“In the course of accessing Jane Doe’s file, Deputy Wilson downloaded photographs of Jane Doe and sent them to his personal email account. In one instance, Deputy Wilson titled at least one photograph, ‘White Pants’ to describe Jane Doe. Deputy Wilson was also able to learn Jane Doe’s name, address and cell phone number by gaining access to Jane Doe’s file, as well as where Jane Doe attended school.”
Capacity to Limit
Saying that “the Sheriff’s Department has the capability to limit access to investigative files, does limit access in rare circumstances, but did not limit access of any kind to Jane Doe’s sexual assault investigative file,” she asserted a cause of action for invasion of privacy against the county, among other claims.
At the time the county filed the motion at issue, only the invasion of privacy cause of action remained pending. In February 2025, San Diego Superior Court Judge Matthew Braner sided with the defendant on the issue of respondeat superior, finding that it was undisputed that Wilson knew accessing the records violated policy and that he did not act within the scope of his employment because his motivations were purely personal.
O’Rourke cited jurisprudence establishing that “an employee’s misconduct may remain within the scope of employment even when it is willful, malicious, or criminal” but acknowledged that a employer will only be liable for an intentional tort if there exists a “causal nexus” to the worker’s performance of his job such that it is a “generally foreseeable consequence” of doing business.
The jurist remarked:
“Assuming Wilson’s conduct benefited himself rather than the County, this fact does not establish, as a matter of law, that he acted outside the scope of his employment….
“The relevant question is whether Wilson was transacting County business when he accessed Doe’s personal information. Although Wilson accessed Doe’s file because he was curious and worried after committing the assault, the record does not establish what work-related tasks he may have been performing when he accessed Doe’s file.”
Opining that “judgment is improper because a triable issue of fact exists as to whether Wilson was transacting County business when he accessed Doe’s personal information,” O’Rourke highlighted that “[t]he County authorized Wilson to access its computer system…and placed no restrictions on his ability to view files” and “provided evidence that detention deputies routinely review reports involving cases in which they are not directly involved.”
Under those circumstances, he concluded:
“[A] reasonable juror could conclude the County knowingly afforded detention deputies broad access to sensitive investigative information while relying primarily on policy, rather than technological restrictions, to prevent misuse. A jury could therefore conclude that an employee’s misuse of that access for personal purposes was not so unusual or startling as to fall outside the risks inherent in the County’s enterprise.”
The county pointed to case law finding that a public entity was not responsible for a correctional officer’s actions in using information gleaned from an internal jail system to send fraudulent and threatening letters. Finding the citation to be distinguishable, O’Rourke commented:
“Wilson did not merely use information obtained from the County’s computer system to commit a separate tort. Rather, the alleged tortious conduct consisted of his unauthorized access to Doe’s confidential information through the very computer system the County entrusted him to use.”
The case is Doe v. County of San Diego, D086071.
In October 2018, Wilson pled guilty to committing a lewd act on a minor, charged under Penal Code §288, and unauthorized access of computer data, in violation of Penal Code §502. San Diego Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein sentenced him to one year in prison, five years of probation, and lifetime sex-offender registration requirements.
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