Hurt by a Company's Former Employee in Virginia? Why the Day They Left the Job Can Decide Your Case

When someone is badly hurt or killed by a person a company sent into their home, families reasonably ask whether the company that hired that person should answer for it. In Virginia the answer is often yes. But a published decision from the Court of Appeals of Virginia, issued September 29, 2026, shows that one fact can end the case before it starts: whether the employee still worked for the company on the day of the attack.

What happened

The case is Hubbard v. All Maid Up, LLC and Sprinkel v. All Maid Up, LLC, Record Nos. 1066-25-1 and 1067-25-1. Because the trial court dismissed the suits at the outset, the appeals court took the families' allegations as true. According to those allegations, a Norfolk couple, William Moore and Connie Hubbard, hired a franchised home cleaning service after it told them it ran background and criminal history checks on every cleaner before hiring.

The company hired a young man without running any check, even though, the complaint said, he had a record of juvenile offenses involving theft, firearms and violence. He quit in September 2021. Two other customers then reported guns missing from homes he had cleaned. The company did not investigate. Instead, it rehired him in January 2022, again without a background check, and two days later sent him to clean the couple's home. He went into a room the cleaners were not allowed to enter. Soon after, a handgun was missing.

The company finally ran a background check and fired him on February 2, 2022. Twenty-six days later, he and an accomplice went to the couple's home. The accomplice shot and killed Mr. Moore at the front door, then shot Ms. Hubbard while she was calling 911.

Ms. Hubbard and Mr. Moore's estate sued the cleaning company and its franchisor for negligent hiring and retention, for the employee's conduct, and for failing to warn them. The trial court dismissed those claims, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

What the court decided

The firing date ended the negligent hiring claim. Virginia allows a person to sue an employer that hires or keeps someone it knew, or should have discovered through a reasonable investigation, was dangerous. The court traced that rule back a century, to a 1922 case in which a railroad was held responsible for a shooting by a worker it hired without checking his record. Skipping a background check can be enough.

But in 2021, in Doe v. Baker, the Supreme Court of Virginia held that a negligent hiring or retention claim "ceases to be viable for conduct committed after the employee is no longer retained by the employer." The court called the end of employment "a logical and practical boundary" and said a rule reaching further would make an employer's duty "unmanageable, utterly unpredictable, and conceptually limitless." (We wrote about that case here.)

The families argued that the harm began while the cleaner was still on the payroll, when he searched their home and planned the robbery. The court disagreed. Planning a crime is not itself the injury. The injuries came from the shooting, and by then he had been fired.

The same date ended the claim for the employee's own conduct. An employer can also be responsible for what an employee does while performing the job. That only works while the employment relationship exists. A former employee is no longer the company's employee.

Advertising background checks did not create a broader duty. The families argued that by promising to vet its cleaners, the company took on a duty to protect them and to warn them about the gun thefts. Virginia generally does not require anyone to protect others from a third party's crime unless there is a special relationship or the defendant clearly and expressly took on that job. The court held that a promise to screen employees is just a promise to do what an employer already must do when hiring. It wrote that employers take on responsibility for a former employee's later conduct "only through unambiguous words or actions."

What this means if you or your family were hurt

This is a published opinion, which makes it precedent for Virginia trial courts. Here is how the rules line up:

A few practical points follow.

Exact dates matter. When an attack involves someone who worked for a cleaning service, home health agency, contractor, security company or similar business, the dates of hiring, firing and any rehiring can decide which claims exist. So can what the person was doing at the moment of the harm.

Harm during the job is different. Virginia law is more favorable when the injury happens while the employee is on the job. In 2019, in Our Lady of Peace, Inc. v. Morgan, a nursing assistant raped an 85-year-old resident during his shift. The Supreme Court of Virginia held that, because the family alleged the assault happened while he was performing his duties, the nursing home could not get that claim thrown out at the start. (The court sent the case back for further proceedings on other grounds.) Our nursing home neglect and sexual abuse pages explain more.

What a company says can matter. Hubbard and Sprinkel leaves room for a company that makes a clear, specific promise to protect a customer. General marketing language was not enough here, but the words a business actually used deserve a careful look.

Deadlines still run. Every civil claim has a filing deadline, and the rules on when it starts and stops are technical. Do not assume a criminal case against the attacker pauses the clock for claims against a business. See our guide to deadlines and the case timeline.

Talk to us

If someone in your family was killed or seriously hurt by a person a business sent into your home or placed in a position of trust, we can help you sort out who may be responsible under Virginia law. Learn more about our wrongful death and Virginia personal injury practice, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123, or use our contact form for a free consultation.

This is general information, not legal advice about your case.