Vicarious Liability: Basis, scope, Justification, Different types

A food-delivery rider, racing to beat a timer, clips a parked car on Linking Road and drives off. The car owner wants compensation. The rider has a bicycle-sized bank balance; the company whose jacket he wears has a balance sheet. Can the owner sue the company for something the company never did, never saw and never wanted? This topic is the answer, and the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no — and the whole skill lies in knowing which.

In two minutes

Vicarious liability is the liability the law places on one person for a tort actually committed by another, because of the relationship between them and the connection between that relationship and the wrong — the usual case being an employer answering for an employee's tort committed in the course of employment.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Law of Torts, Motor Accident Claims and Consumer Protection on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.