Court rules Cosby Show producer not liable for star’s alleged assaults

The question for the court was not whether any of that happened. It was whether one studio visit – where no assault allegedly took place – was enough to pin liability on the employer. 

New York’s negligent supervision doctrine requires three things: that the employer knew about the employee’s harmful tendencies, could control the employee, and that the employee used employer premises or resources to commit the harm. The court said element three was missing. 

The plaintiff pointed to the studio visit as the start of Cosby’s “grooming process.” The court was not persuaded. Using employer property to “impress and possibly bait” someone, it held, was not the same as using it to commit an independently tortious act. 

The decision followed the court’s recent ruling in B.B. v Cosby (245 AD3d 498), which dismissed a similar claim where the plaintiff never visited the studio. The two cases could not be “meaningfully distinguished,” the court said. What mattered was “the nature of those visits,” not the number. 

Not everyone on the bench agreed. Two of five justices dissented, arguing Cosby’s use of the set and a promised role to gain the plaintiff’s trust was enough. They pointed to the Court of Appeals’ Moore decision, where an employee who used company email and letterhead to defraud an investor triggered employer liability – without the victim ever visiting the premises.