Liability for an Employees Assaults Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Liability for an Employees Assaults - Case Study ExampleThe discussion that follows explains why.Vicarious indebtedness is a effectual concept assigning responsibility to an employer for the negligence or prohibited conduct of an employee acting in the drift of his duties at work. If the conduct is in no way connected to the employment the employer will not be held liable. There are several reasons for the doctrine of vicarious liability and Michael A. Jones offers perhaps the best synopsis. Jones explains that vicarious liability can be justified on the following grounds(1) The master has the deepest pockets. The wealth of a defendant, or the fact that he has access to resources via insurance, has in some cases had an unconscious influence on the development of court-ordered principles.The courts have established and developed a three tier canvass in order to restrict whether or not the tortfeasor is an employee and his employer is vicariously liable for the conduct of his or her employee. The three tier tests are the control test2, the integral test3and the four-fold test.4The control test is satisfied if the employee is chthonic the control of the employer. For instance if the employer can terminate the employee for failing to carry out the employers instructions, the employee is under the control of the employer. ... in every likelihood to be considered an employee and if the employer is at liberty to hire the employee and to terminate his services he will in all likelihood be deemed an employee within the context of the control test.5 Margaret Simpson should have no difficulty establishing the control test for the purpose of having Tom deemed an employee of AFS. He himself stated that he was only doing his job. Moreover in attempting to justify his conduct he stated that he was responding to comments about his poor performance made by his manager Sarah Harper. This avowal is a manifestation of the control Toms employers had over the manner in wh ich he performed his duties. There were also preceding(prenominal) talks about job losses and performance targets which would suggest that Tom was an employee under the control of AFS.By virtue of the integral test, if the employee forms an integral part of the business and is not merely incidental to the business whence he will be deemed an employee.6 Tom Barnes is employed at AFS headquarters in the position of yield sales executive. AFS as a financial services business and selling its products can not in any way be viewed as merely incidental to the success of the business. Therefore it is fair to expect that Tom Barnes, a product sales executive is an integral part of the business.The multiple test is an fusion of the control and integral tests. In Ready Mix Concrete (South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions (1968) 2 QB 497 it was held that the multiple test is satisfied and an employee is said to be under a contract of service if he is remunerative for his services, is unde r the control either expressly or implicitly of his employer and if there are other toll and conditions reflective with an employment contract.7 On the facts of the case for