Judges said a dismissal came too soon - and the drinking-culture claim can now move forward
An Indiana appeals court revived a worker's suit accusing her employer of failing to protect her from a co-worker's alleged assault.
The case is a reminder: a motion to dismiss rarely ends an employer-negligence claim, and what happens on a work trip can reach the employer.
The worker started with the company, a contracted FedEx Ground delivery provider, in September 2023. She was sent to St. Louis on a "contingency team to take over delivery routes as needed," and stayed in housing the complaint said the employer controlled.
According to her amended complaint, a fellow employee - the brother of the company's owner - "aggressively and forcefully sexually assaulted and raped" her there after an evening out with coworkers. She alleged the company "deliberately and/or negligently cultivated and tolerated a workplace culture that normalized excessive drinking and emboldened inappropriate behavior among its employees."
She sued the employer - not the co-worker, who was not a party - for direct negligence and vicarious liability, claiming it failed to supervise, failed to warn of the co-worker's alleged dangerous propensities, and negligently hired and retained him.
The trial court threw the whole case out under Indiana's Rule 12(B)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally valid claim. On August 10, 2026, the Court of Appeals of Indiana reversed and sent the case back.
The appeals court found the trial court had dismissed claims the employer never even asked it to dismiss, including premises liability and negligent security. Courts, it noted, generally cannot toss claims on their own initiative.
On the challenged negligence claims, the court said the worker's allegations cleared the low bar of Indiana's notice-pleading rules. An employer can owe a duty to control an employee even when that employee acts outside the scope of the job, the court explained, and whether that duty was breached is a fact question for later.
The vicarious liability claim survived too. Whether an act falls within the scope of employment is "generally a question of fact," the court wrote, and that question is "ill-suited for resolution" so early - before discovery reveals the employee's duties and the employer's policies and control.
For HR, the signals are practical. Employer-provided housing, work travel, and the alleged drinking culture all pulled the company's conduct into view. Supervision, hiring, and retention could not be waved away at the pleading stage.
The ruling did not decide whether the alleged assault occurred or whether the company is liable. It only sent the case back for the trial court to hear it. The allegations remain unproven.
