Vicarious liability

golum

Just wondering if anybody could direct me to any cases involving the above. Of particular use would be a case which involved a distinction being made between a contractor and an employee, and also a case which turned on the distinction between disobeying instructions and acting on a folly of one's own.

Tom Young

Lynch v Palgrave Murphy Ltd. [1964] IR 150; Phelan v Coilte Teoranta [1993] 1 IR 20;

golum

Thanks for that, the Lynch case definitely takes care of the contractor/servant aspect. The other part seems more difficult to resolve, namely; to find an authority which held that an employer was not liable for the actions of his employee, as those actions were deemed to constitute a folly of the employee's own. Such cases seem hard to come by, especially if the more extreme and obvious end of the scale is excluded, eg cases involving the rape of one employee by another etc.
Any asssistance would be much appreciated.

Tom Young

There are quite a few cases actually, mostly institutional abuse cases and are not in the various books e.g., McMahon and Binchy or Healy on Tort Law.

Some here:

R (R) v D (P) & ORS, [2007] IEHC 252;
Delahunty v. South Eastern Health Board [High Court], [2003] 4 IR 361;
M (T) v H (J) & ORS, [2006] IEHC 261;
O'C & O'S v McD & ORS, [2006] IEHC 299; and
O'C. v. K.L.H. [High Court], [2007] 1 IR 802.

They're not the nicest to read.

Tom

NUTLEY BOY

I can remember one English case on point. I am away from home base so I cannot give you the exact reference as I cannot access my books ! I think that it was IQBAL -v- LONDON TRANSPORT (1973) ?. It was reported in The Times but I cannot find it elsewhere.

Facts :A bus owned by the defendants was parked at a terminus having completed a run. The driver was away from the vehicle. Of his own initiative the bus conductor decided to turn the bus around in readiness for the return trip and due to his negligent driving there was a crash.

Held : The defendants were not vicariously liable. The conductor was not employed to drive a bus. This act was outside the scope of his employment and the defendants were not responsible.

Generally, it is quite difficult to find cases to satisfy your specific query beyond the institutional abuse type cases.

The recent Irish Supreme Court decision in O'Keeffe -v- Hickey & Ors contains a pretty good review of the law of vicarious liability generally and I recommend it as a worthwhile read. Indeed, some of the cases cited are ones that I would recall as being near to your specific issue. The URL is http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC/2008/S72.html

Look in particular at cases like LIMPUS -v- LONDON GENERAL OMNIBUS CO (1862) which is covered in paragraph 40 of Fennelly J's judgment in O'Keeffe. In that case the employee did something specifically contrary to instructions but vicarious liability still rested on the principal/employer for the acts of the agent/employee.

Fennelly J. also seems to cover some the "frolic" of your own cases too !!

As a general observation it seems to me that there seems to be a reluctance to allow a principal/employer to evade vicarious liability.

golum

Thanks a lot for to both of you. I am inclined to agree with you Nutley Boy, it would appear that most of the cases which allow the employer to avoid liability are at the very extreme end of the scale.
Ideally, what I am looking for is something less "clear cut", ie where the behaviour of the employee could, conceivably be held to be directly related to his employment. Most of the "frolic" cases that I have come across seem to have favoured the plaintiff, and held the employer vicariously liable, however, I am looking for the opposite outcome. The Iqbal case that you refer to may be useful in that regard.

partyguinness

Whats wrong people....

In my day we had these things called textbooks...:eek:

NoQuarter

partyguinness wrote: »

Whats wrong people....

In my day we had these things called textbooks...:eek:

And they probably had capital punishment too!!!!

Change is inevitable my good man, just go with it! :pac: