Vicarious Liability Flashcards

Question

What happened in Hawley v Luminar Leisure (2006)? What was held? What did the court note?

Answer 1

- Luminar Leisure used a bouncer from another agency - Bouncer injured claimant, causing brain damage - The bouncer's agency went bust so the claimant was trying to establish that Luminar employed the bouncer - HELD - yes. Luminar = employer as there was control over what the bouncer did and Luminar would have been in a position to prevent the tort

Answer 2

- Carmichael v National Power (2001)

Answer 3

- Claimants worked as tour guides at a power station on a 'casual basis' - HELD - not employees - They turned up for work as and when they were needed, they could refuse to work if they didn't feel like it, and they wouldn't face disciplinary action (not enough of an obligation)

Answer 4

- Mersey Docks v Coggins (1947) | - Viasystems v Thermal Transfer (2005)

Answer 5

- Claimants loaned the defendants a crane driver who caused an accident due to his negligence - ISSUE - who employed him? - HELD - employee of Mersey Docks, as a contract existed saying that he was an employee. They paid his wages and had the power to sack him - The court laid down a few guidelines for future similar cases

Answer 6

- The permanent employer will be the employer unless they can show that the person is not their employee - Who has the immediate right to control the employee's method of working? - Identify the act of negligence and then work backwards to find out who was best placed to prevent the act - Who paid them? Who dismissed them? How long was the loan for? - How the person is described in the contract is never conclusive - at best it is a statement of intent

Answer 7

- A worker can have more than one employer at the same time, who will be vicariously liable for the employee

Answer 8

- Various Claimants v Catholic Child Welfare Society (2012) - Cox v MOJ (2016) - Various Claimants v Barclays Bank (2017) - Armes v Nottinghamshire City Council (2017)

Answer 9

- The school was deemed sufficiently in control of the priests for a relationship of employer/employee to exist - Principles

Answer 10

- Who is likely to be in a financial position to compensate the victim - Was the tortious activity part of the employer's business activity? - Has the employer essentially created the risk of the tort happening? - Was there control of the employee's activities (when, where, how, uniform)?

Answer 11

- Held that MOJ was vicariously liable for the negligence of a prisoner who injured the claimant employee - Referred to the judgement in Catholic Child Welfare (2012)

Answer 12

- The prison service was in the position of being able to pay out in claims, but more importantly was best placed to assess the danger that prisoners posed (they created the risk)

Answer 13

- Bank arranged for potential employees to be medically examined by a doctor who abused the applicants - HELD - the medical exams were to benefit the bank as they wanted to ensure the fitness of potential employees - The bank may not have directed the doctor's actions, but created the conditions for the tort to be committed. The applicants didn't have much choice as a successful medical examination was a condition of employment set by the bank

Answer 14

- Girl in foster care abused - Council vicariously liable - Liability was strict, the council undertook a vetting and selection process of parents and the council had the right to approve or disapprove of a placement and had the right to remove the child if they deemed it necessary

Answer 15

- When the tort is committed outside the course of employment

Answer 16

- When the tort is committed during the course of employment

Answer 17

- If an employee does something not related to their work and commits a tort, then the employer will not be liable for said tort

Answer 18

- Defendant sent two employees in a horse and cart to deliver wine. On the way back they made a detour in order to complete business of their own. While doing this the claimant was run over due to their negligent driving - HELD - defendant not vicariously liable - Because the employees were on a frolic of their own

Answer 19

- An employee hired to clean telephones was held to be acting outside of his responsibilities when he used them for long distance calls

Answer 20

- Hilton v Thomas Burton Ltd (1961) - Williams v Hemphill (1966) - Smith v Stages (1989)

Answer 21

- Four workmen allowed to use a van to travel to and from work were deemed to have acted outside their responsibilities by going to a cafe near their job - Not vicariously liable as the journey was not permitted under the terms of employment

Answer 22

- Employee took a detour when carrying passengers to Glasgow | - Employers vicariously liable as he had picked up passengers and so was still performing his role (detour not relevant)

Answer 23

- Employees who were paid for travel to and from work caused an accident on the wat home - Employer liable as the employee was paid a normal day's wage for the day of travel - Normally travel to and from work would not result in vicarious liability, unless the contract suggests otherwise

Answer 24

- Employer vicariously liable for the torts of their employee if employee is committing an act authorised by the employer - General rule is the employer will be liable for an authorised act done in an unauthorised manner - However, the employer is not responsible if the employee is acting beyond the scope of his or her employment

Answer 25

- Poland v Parr (1927)

Answer 26

- Employee thought a boy was stealing sugar from the back of a wagon an hit him (he fell, wagon got his foot so lost his leg) - Employer liable - There was an implied authority to act to protect the employer's property

Answer 27

- Century Insurance v Northern Ireland Transport Board (1942) - Iqbal v London Transport Executive (1973) - Bayley v Manchester Railway (1873)

Answer 28

- Defendant's employee lit a cigarette and dropped the match, causing an explosion - Employer liable - What he was doing at the time was part of his job (unloading petrol) even if he was doing it in a negligent way

Answer 29

- A bus conductor drove a bus even though he was specifically forbidden from doing so. His negligent driving caused damage - Employer not liable - The prohibition excluded a certain activity and therefore limited the sphere of the conductor's employment

Answer 30

- In Century Insurance, the employee was acting in the course of his employment, whereas in Iqbal the employee was acting outside the scope of his employment

Answer 31

- Railway porter injured a passenger by pulling him from a train as he believed him to be on the wrong one - Employer liable

Answer 32

- Limpus v London General Omnibus (1862) - Twine v Bean's Express Ltd (1942) - Rose v Plenty (1976)

Answer 33

- Omnibus driver crashed while racing another bus | - Employer liable

Answer 34

- Van driver specifically told not to give lifts to certain classes of people. He did and killed said person due to negligent driving - Employer not liable as picking up the person who died was not part of his job

Answer 35

- Milk float driver told he couldn't pick up passengers or let children help with his deliveries - he ignored both and let a 13 year old boy help him - Employer liable - Defendant was being negligent in the course of performing his duties - Courts may have been influenced by the fact that the child had no one else to sue for damages

Answer 36

- Closeness of connection between the employment and the unlawful act

Answer 37

- The solicitor's clerk's defrauding of the client was something that his employers were vicariously liable for as they should have been supervising him (they were contracted to do so as a part of his training)

Answer 38

- Petrol pump attendant had a fight with a customer | - Employer not liable as the petrol had already been bought so anything after was not done in the course of employment

Answer 39

- One of the wardens at a school had nonced a number of children - HELD - owner of school vicariously liable - 'closeness of connection' test to determine vicarious liability

Answer 40

- The wrongful act committed by the employee was authorised by the employer - The employee carried out their duties in a wrongful or unauthorised way, but what they were doing was still their duty

Answer 41

- The Salmond Test

Answer 42

- A fraud perpetrated by someone who the solicitors in a firm had introduced the claimants to was held to have been committed in the course of the solicitor's business - Used the 'closeness of connection' test that was used in Lister

Answer 43

- He had identified himself as a police officer | - He shot the victim with a gun that was provided by his employer

Answer 44

- Rugby player fought another during a match and broke a bone in his face - Club vicariously liable as the employee was doing his job in an unauthorised way, outside the instructions of his employer, but was still acting in the course of employment

Answer 45

- Nightclub employed an unlicensed bouncer who, after an altercation in the club, went home, returned armed and seriously assaulted the customer - HELD - Employer liable

Answer 46

- Priest nonced a non-catholic child he had befriended - Church vicariously liable - Passed the lister test

Answer 47

- Cashier at Morrisons petrol station fought a customer over printing a receipt - Morrisons vicariously liable as there was an unbroken series of events between attending to the claimant's enquiries and the fight - Supreme Court said that his job was to interact with customers and respond to their enquiries

Answer 48

- Employee committed a data breach - Morrisons not liable - The handling of data was something that the employee was authorised to do, but it was not done in the course of his duties

Answer 49

- Fraudulent investment opportunity offered to claimants via a virtual portal - Not vicariously liable - The person in question did work for the defendants but the scam was part of a recognisably separate venture and not an integrated part of the defendant's business

Answer 50

- Majrowski v Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust (2005)

Answer 51

- Claimant sought damages saying that their manager was a bully and that it amounted to harassment under the 1997 Act - Liable - Since everyone knows that harassment is an offence, if the employer does not address such behaviour then they are much more likely to be found vicariously liable

Answer 52

- Weddall v Barchester Healthcare (2012) | - Wallbank v Wallbank Fox Designs (2012)

Answer 53

- Employee called by boss and asked to work extra shift. He was drunk and thought the boss was making fun of him, so he went and assaulted him - Employer not liable - The 'closeness of connection' test set out in Lister could not be established as the employer was off duty and cycled 20 minutes to assault the boss

Answer 54

- Boss told worker to do something and was attacked as a result - Employer liable - It was a violent and instant response to what was being done by the boss

Answer 55

- A company/employer can successfully sue the employee in a separate claim to try and recover its losses paid out as a result of the employee's tort

Answer 56

- Lister v Romford Ice and Cold Storage (1957)

Answer 57

- A lorry driver employed by the defendants ran over and injured his own father who was also an employee - The firm then sued the son - This was allowed because the careless driving was a tort and also a contractual breach of the implied duty of care to exercise reasonable care when exercising his duties

Answer 58

- Under the principles of vicarious liability, the employer is frequently best placed to pay out damages. Allowing them to recover these sums essentially means that they aren't exposing themselves to any risk, and therefore they won't be careful about regulating the performance of the employees in doing their jobs

Answer 59

- Insurers giving cover to employers have agreed that they will not take part in indemnity payouts unless there is evidence a fraud has taken place in which the employer and employee have colluded

Answer 60

- An employer is not usually responsible for the torts of an independent contractor on a vicarious liability basis - Independent contractors CAN cause vicarious liability for employers when they complete jobs on behalf of them in certain circumstances

Answer 61

- If an employer tries to delegate one of said roles, and the contractor commits a tort, in certain circumstances they will never be able to avoid vicarious liability for the contractors' torts

Answer 62

- Cases where duties to children, patients and other vulnerable persons are concerned - Where a duty of care to protect from harm exists (both statute and common law) - Where the claimant had no control over the contractor's performance - Where the employer had delegated an aspect of the duty of care to the contractor who then had control over the claimant's safety - The contractor had simply been negligent in the performance of that duty (there is a duty of care imposed on Occupiers under the 1957 Act - a duty to pick a competent practitioner

Answer 63

- There was a duty on the part of the ministry to provide access to healthcare but NOT to oversee the quality of the treatment (they had delegated the duty to provide healthcare but they did not and could not control the quality of care)

Answer 64

- For an employer to be vicariously liable, the negligence of the contractor would have had to have been central to their contracted work and not merely incidental to it - Placing a tool in a dangerous place was deemed incidental to the main duties

Answer 65

- Benefits to employers - Financial resources - Preventing negligent recruitment and raising standards

Answer 66

- If employers benefit, they should also shoulder the risk. There is also the argument that the party most financially able to meet a claim should therefore meet it

Answer 67

- Since the risk is usually passed on to the consumer in the case of big businesses in the form of insurance and damage payouts, the courts are always reluctant to endorse an inequality of bargaining power

Answer 68

- Vicarious liability will place this burden on employers, whose wrong selection of workers in technical/sensitive positions is often the prime source of tortious incidents in any event - There is evidence that imposing vicarious liability promotes better standards

Vicarious Liability Flashcards

(92 cards)