liability

[lukehill]

If an emploee of a company steals from a client during his/her working hours, who is to blame? The company or the individual?

[Hippy]

The Company as, however dishonest, the worker is said to be acting in the capacity of a servant of the company. It might be possible for the Company to take action against its (by then ex-) employee to recover any compensation awarded by the court. Directors of a Limited Company are a special case and can be held personally responsible for their own wrongdoings and also their employees if they knew it was happening and did nothing to prevent it.

Of course there are exceptions. Case in point:

A bus conductor collecting fares becomes annoyed by a passenger and lashed out, hitting the passenger with the ticket machine, breaking bones and causing considerable harm. The passenger claimed compensation from the bus company, who defended by saying that although they employed the bus conductor his actions were well outside the employer - employee relationship. The judge agreed with this point but deemed the bus company to be liable as it owed the passenger a duty of care despite this. The passenger was successful in gaining compensation, even though the Judge said that the company was not responsible for the actions of its rogue employee. In a separate court, the bus conductor faced criminal charges and was found guilty of actual bodily harm and imprisoned.

[Postdog]

I was gonna say their parents, but maybe the other answer is better

[gammaray]

Remind me to get my car fixed! The bus now seems less appealing.

[foulecamp]

Try looking up "vicarious liability" on Google: assuming you are in the UK.

[campbellking]

The solicitor who acted in our house purchase was later found guilty of embezzelling client funds. He did try and alter our bill at one point until I reminded him what we had agreed to pay. All in all, I think he stole around �250,000 which his employers repaid and are trying their best to recover from him.

[lukehill]

Ok... how about the following scenario:

A company (called ABC) is working as a sub-contractor to another organisation (called XYZ). An ABC operative arrives on site and is instrcuted by XYZ to knock down someone's wall. The owner of the wall attempts to sue XYZ for damages to his property and XYZ pass the blame onto ABC, saying that it was their operative who did the damage.

What happens in that case?

[Hippy]

We assume here that destroying the wall was outside the scope of either XYZ's and ABC's lawful activities, and that the only defence to action would likely to be "genuine error".

If it can be shown that an XYZ employee issued the instruction then clearly XYZ are liable, the ABC employee was carrying out the (we assume) terms of the contract between ABC and XYZ. If the wall owner or XYZ can show that the person who damaged the property was acting outside the terms of the contract (for example they were only posing as an ABC employee, but in truth were just an unrelated individual causing malicious damage) Then the proper person to sue would be that individual.

The wall owner might be unable to show that the instruction was issued by an XYZ person to the ABC wall destroyer. However the ultimate responsibility lies with the contract provider, and the presumed overall controller of works on the site in question. This is XYZ. Even if XYZ can show "denial of responsibility" clauses in the XYZ and ABC contract, the courts will negate such attempts to limit ultimate responsibility. They will quite rightly say that XYZ had control therefore responsibility and duty of care. If XYZ wishes to transfer the effects of that responsibility to ABC then it should sue ABC for compensation after the wall owner has been compensated.