This case involves a vicarious liability action brought by Bonnie Hicks against Mark Heard Fuel Company “Company” for injuries Hicks received from a car collision with Jessica Heard “Jessica”, an “on call” employee of the Company. In Hicks v. Heard , 297 Ga. App. 689 678 SE2d 145 2009, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Company. In doing so, the Court of Appeals found that Hicks failed to satisfy the required burden to show that Jessica was acting in the scope of her employment with the Company at the time of the collision. We granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals gave proper weight to an employee’s “on call” status during the final step of the burden shifting framework laid out in Allen Kane’s Major Dodge, Inc. v. Barnes , 243 Ga. 776 257 SE2d 186 1979. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm. As set forth in the Court of Appeals opinion, the record in this case shows that Samuel Heard is the vice president and co-owner of the Company and that Jessica Heard is his daughter. In 2004, Jessica was employed part-time by the Company to perform clerical work on an “as needed” basis. For her personal and work-related use, Jessica drove a sport utility vehicle, which was owned at the time by the Company. Around noon on July 13, 2004, Jessica was driving home from school when she collided into the rear-end of a vehicle, which had stopped behind some other vehicles that were waiting to turn left. The vehicle that Jessica hit subsequently collided into the back of Hicks’s vehicle. Hicks sued Jessica Heard and the Company, alleging that she suffered injuries as a result of Jessica’s negligence and alleging that the Company was liable for Jessica’s negligence on the grounds of vicarious liability and negligent entrustment of a vehicle. At the close of discovery, the Company filed a motion for summary judgment, which the trial court granted. Footnote omitted. Hicks , supra, 297 Ga. App. at 689-690.
Jessica testified unequivocally and without contradiction that she was on the purely personal mission of returning home after finishing an exam at school at the time that she had a vehicle collision with Hicks. In response to the Company’s motion for summary judgment, Hicks countered Jessica’s uncontradicted testimony only with Jessica’s statement that she was “on call” at the time of the incident. The mere fact that Jessica could have been called to duty at some point in the future, however, does not contradict Jessica’s testimony that, at the time of the collision, she was not acting in the scope of her employment. To the contrary, it is, at best, a “mere inconclusive inference . . . insufficient to get Hicks by the Company’s motion for summary judgment.” Allen Kane’s Major Dodge , supra, 243 Ga. at 781. Given Hick’s failure to present any satisfactory evidence to contradict Jessica’s testimony regarding the nature of her mission, the burden-shifting framework set forth in Allen Kane’s Major Dodge supports the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Company and the Court of Appeals’ affirmance of that judgment.
