802
Opinion of the Court
ously liable for its servant's abuse of apparent authority. Brief for Respondent 30-31, and n. 24. But this narrow reading is untenable; it would render the second qualification of § 219(2)(d) almost entirely superfluous (and would seem to ask us to shut our eyes to the potential effects of supervisory authority, even when not explicitly invoked). The illustrations accompanying this subsection make clear that it covers not only cases involving the abuse of apparent authority, but also cases in which tortious conduct is made possible or facilitated by the existence of the actual agency relationship. See Restatement § 219, Comment e (noting employer liability where "the servant may be able to cause harm because of his position as agent, as where a telegraph operator sends false messages purporting to come from third persons" and where the manager who operates a store "for an undisclosed principal is enabled to cheat the customers because of his position"); id., § 247, Illustration 1 (noting a newspaper's liability for a libelous editorial published by an editor acting for his own purposes).
We therefore agree with Faragher that in implementing Title VII it makes sense to hold an employer vicariously liable for some tortious conduct of a supervisor made possible by abuse of his supervisory authority, and that the aided-by-agency-relation principle embodied in § 219(2)(d) of the Restatement provides an appropriate starting point for determining liability for the kind of harassment presented here.3 Several courts, indeed, have noted what Faragher has argued, that there is a sense in which a harassing supervisor is always assisted in his misconduct by the supervisory relationship. See, e. g., Rodgers v. Western-Southern Life Ins.
3 We say "starting point" because our obligation here is not to make a pronouncement of agency law in general or to transplant § 219(2)(d) into Title VII. Rather, it is to adapt agency concepts to the practical objectives of Title VII. As we said in Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U. S. 57, 72 (1986), "common-law principles may not be transferable in all their particulars to Title VII."
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