Cite as: 537 U. S. 280 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
vicarious liability—unless, of course, Congress, better able than courts to weigh the relevant policy considerations, has instructed the courts differently. Cf., e. g., Sykes, The Economics of Vicarious Liability, 93 Yale L. J. 1231, 1236 (1984) (arguing that the expansion of vicarious liability or shifting of liability, due to insurance, may diminish an agent's incentives to police behavior). We have found no different instruction here.
III
A
Respondents, conceding that traditional vicarious liability rules apply, see supra, at 289, argue that those principles themselves warrant liability here. For one thing, they say, California law itself creates what amounts, under ordinary common-law principles, to an employer/employee or principal/agent relationship between (a) a corporate officer designated as the broker under a real estate license issued to the corporation, and (b) a corporate employee/salesperson. Brief for Respondents 6-8, 13-36. Insofar as this argument rests solely upon the corporate broker/officer's right to control the employee/salesperson, the Ninth Circuit considered and accepted it. 258 F. 3d, at 1134-1135. But we must reject it given our determination in Part II that the "right to control" is insufficient by itself, under traditional agency principles, to establish a principal/agent or employer/ employee relationship.
B
The Ninth Circuit did not decide whether other aspects of the California broker relationship, when added to the "right to control," would, under traditional legal principles and consistent with "the general common law of agency," Burlington Industries, Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U. S., at 754 (internal quotation marks omitted), establish the necessary relationship. But in the absence of consideration of that matter by the Court of Appeals, we shall not consider it. See Pennsylva-
291
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