Washington  |  Intellectual Property

Re: car damaged at work

This is not an intellectual property question, so you might have more luck in a torts or regular property forum. However, I will take a crack at pointing you in the right direction.

You should look up the doctrine of respondeat superior (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respondeat_superior) which basically states that an employer is responsible for actions of an employee performed in the course of doing his/her job. It sounds like that's the case here, so I doubt you would be liable to the car owner. A second question, however, is whether you might be liable to your employer. In that case, the doctrine you want to look at is negligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligence). Unless you acted very irresponsibly, it is unlikely that you were negligent. This sounds like an accident to me and I would expect your employer to bear the responsibility. They could still fire you since this is an "at will" employment state, so best to work out something amicable with them.