I’ve never been a teller in a bank, but I’ve gotten those same instructions at every single job involving a cash register I’ve ever worked.
Back before the dawn of time (from my perspective, that is), my mother was “held up” buring a “bank heist”. I use the terms somewhat loosely.
When she was a high school student, she had a part-time job with the Royal Bank of Canada, going up and down the main street of town collecting bank desposits after school each day. The bank hired one of her classmates as a plain-clothes guard to protect her on her en route. Unfortunately, the bank did not think to inform the police of this, so when the guard showed her his gun, a police officer spotted it and immediately arrested him, with all the fanfare that one would expect during a supposed armed robbery.
The young lad was not fired. He kept working for the bank during summers throughout university, stayed with the bank permanently, and eventually worked his way up to Chairman of the Board.
Times have sure changed!
Just to be clear:
Robber takes a hostage and tells me and another guy to hand over our wallets. We don’t do so, he kills the hostage, and we’re not liable.
Robber takes a hostage and tells me and another guy to hand over each other’s wallets. We don’t do so, he kills the hostage, and we are liable?
Why does whose money it is make a difference?
This is generally the law and I have no objection to it. Actually, business invitees are entitled to even a bit more than “reasonable level of care.” Lots of people/business are held civilly liable for not preventing criminal acts of others.
As far as whether the teller followed company policies or not, I don’t think that should matter. Employers are responsible for negligence of their employees and we hold employers responsible all the time for employee screw ups. Every suit against a business is based on someone who works there doing something wrong. If they have a policy, but don’t train about it well enough or enforce it well enough, that’s their problem.
I know I’m the king of ridiculous hypotheticals, but even I won’t try to sell that second scenario.
Look, forget the robbery part. My point is that if the teller were being asked to – I dunno – come out of a panic room because the hostage-taker intends to shoot or otherwise assault her or him, then the teller is justfied in not doing so. But in the situation of the OP, in which the teller is being asked simply to fork over money – not even his or her own money – or else the hostage-taker will kill the hostage, then the teller is a stupid asshole for refusing his to do so. Given that banks in my experience instruct and train their employees to cooperate with robbers, I find it difficult to believe that the teller is not violating bank policy as well as common sense by doing so. I have no problem holding the teller personally liable.
Somebody upthread commented that in common law, the bank is still liable because the teller is its employee and agent. That may well be; I am not a lawyer and I’m not about to pretend to know the law of such matters. But I still think the teller should be held partly responsible, because, well, she or he is. As guilty as the robber? Of course not. Blameless? Fuck yeah.
I note that four persons have voted the poll that the bank should be liable but not the teller. May I ask why those persons feel that way?
Occupy Wall Street?
Agreed.
Disagreed. There’s a wide gulf in my opinion between being a stupid asshole and being even a little bit legally liable for a death carried out wholly by a third party.
If the teller were to taunt the robber as in Manda JO’s example I’d be more willing to consider that leading to some liability. I just can’t see that calmly refusing to cooperate in a crime should ever make one legally liable for the wrongdoing of the criminal. I particularly dislike the idea that a person willing to do violent things has the power to make his victims cooperate not just with the threat of violence, but also with the force of law.
I have no problem with the bank firing the teller for refusing to abide by their regulations.
I don’t think the safety of the money should be above the safety of the hostage. That’s just common decency. And probably the quicker they get rid of the robbers the safer everyone is.