Dominic Regan delves into the sometimes illogical world of vicarious liability law
A hapless young man with a hydraulic air pipe inserted in his bottom. An impatient, trigger-happy policeman. Light–fingered employees conveying silver bullion. A perverted priest. The common link is—what else?—the law of vicarious liability. There is surely no area of tort which keeps a straight face when confronted by the utterly ludicrous.
The House of Lords came clean decades ago in ICI Ltd v Shatwell [1965] AC 656, [1964] 2 All ER 999 when it admitted that logic had little to do with the law. It was all about expediency. Since an employer had liability insurance and, it assumed, deep pockets too, there was a compelling pragmatic reason to make the employer liable for the activities of employees insofar as the relevant incident occurred in the course of employment.
A lurch forward
The law took a further lurch forward with the judgment of the Law Lords in Lister v Hesley Hall Ltd [2002] 1 AC 215, [2001] 2 All ER
