Vicarious Liability In Tort

INTRODUCTION

Vicarious liability is a doctrine of English tort law that imposes a liability on employers for the wrongdoings of their employees. Generally, an employer will be held liable for any tort committed while an employee is conducting their duties.

‘ Qui facit per alium facit per se’ and ‘Respondent Superior’ are some Latin phrases that support this premise.

Some relationships of this sort are:

1. Agent- Principal

2. Master- Servant

3. Partner’s obligation

So Vicarious Liability manages situations where one individual is obligated for the demonstrations of others. In the field of Torts it is thought to be a special case to the general decide that a man is obligated for his own particular demonstrations as it were. So for a situation

The reason of this is, each demonstration which is finished by worker over the span of his obligation is viewed as done by his expert's request, and, subsequently it is the same as though it were expert's own particular demonstration".

MASTER – SERVANT RELATIONSHIP

Employers shall be responsible for their servants only and not for the independent contractors. Thus for a master to be liable two essentials are that the servant does the act and it was within the course of employment.

A servant is an agent who is liable to the control and supervision of his boss with respect to the way in which the work is to be finished. An independent contractor is not subject to any such control. He embraces to do certain work and with respect to the way in which the work is to be finished. He is his own expert and activities his own carefulness. Independent contractor is one "who embraces to deliver a given result, however so that in the real rejection of the work, he is not under the request or control of the individual for whom he does it, and might utilize his own circumspection in things not indicated

DRAWBACK

One may venture, not improperly, to characterize the modern doctrine of vicarious responsibility for the acts of others as a veritable upastree. The extension of joint-stock enterprise with limited liability alone makes the consequences of the doctrine tolerable.

Clearly, ' Qui facit per alium facit per se ' is a simple untruth, except so far as it expresses the truism that one who deliberately carries out a design through the instrumentality of another is the active agent throughout. It certainly is not true that what your agents does is what you would do yourself. Neither in law nor in morals are the unauthorized acts of employees attributable to the employer. 'Respondeat superior ' is the maxim which has really done the mischief. It is here proposed to examine how.

The mental element and the circumstances of the situation are never analysed before making the master/employer liable. It can so happen that the servant while performing the act would’ve thought in a different manner and if the master went in his place he would’ve acted differently. But this distinction of opinions never come to the surface of the problem, it always remains in the