Danielle Jennings moved into the Ashley Lakes apartment complex in November. The following March, Jennings was found strangled to death in her apartment. Approximately six months earlier, the apartment complex, owned by TGM, had hired Calvin Oliver, a convicted felon and recidivist, as a maintenance worker and gave him full access to all the residents’ keys. On the day of the murder, Oliver entered Jennings’s apartment while she was at work and killed her when she came home at lunchtime. He was later arrested and convicted for the victim’s murder and the burglary of her apartment. 

Beverly Glover, the leasing manager, had recommended Oliver for employment as a maintenance worker. Although Oliver told Glover that he had been in trouble with the law and had been in jail, Glover did not check into his criminal history or disclose that information to her supervisors. In fact, Oliver had spent most of his adult life in prison or on parole. He had felony convictions for rape, armed robbery, robbery, robbery by force, larceny, credit card theft, and at least three residential burglaries. Between the time that TGM hired Oliver and the murder, residents of Ashley Lakes reported ten or more unforced entries and burglaries of their apartments. 

Glover admitted knowing about the unforced entries. Key control policies were routinely violated on a daily basis, and there were problems with missing keys to residents’ apartments. Only the manager and assistant manager were supposed to have keys to the maintenance key lock box. At the time of his arrest, Oliver had keys to the maintenance lock box on both his personal key ring and his work key ring. When TGM was sued for the loss of Jennings’s life, it argued that it could not be liable for Oliver’s actions because he was acting outside the scope of his employment. Is TGM legally liable for the death of Jennings? Explain.