Vicarious liability continues to be a concern for many clients. The scope for employers, for example, being found liable for the acts of their employees when there is no ‘conventional fault’ continues to expand.
Often we are asked to advise organisations who find themselves bound up in a claim where the individual was not an employee. The Supreme Court decision of Armes v. Nottinghamshire County Council handed down this week may cause some alarm. That case concerned the liability of a local authority for the acts of foster parents in a case where it was fully accepted the Local Authority was not negligent. The finding of vicarious liability for the acts of the foster parents will be troubling to many organisations. The Judgment clearly has wider implications as the focus of the Supreme Court was on whether or not actions could be considered to be such an integral part of the organisation so that it would be impossible to draw a sharp line between what the organisation did and the outcome caused by the third party i.e. the abuse. Clearly, one can see that where at the heart of any case there is an innocent victim of childhood sexual and physical abuse, there must be a moral imperative to look at the extension of vicarious liability as happened here.
However, the arguments on the limits of such an extension remain. This is an area of particular personal interest, given my success in demonstrating the limits of the scope of that doctrine in the Court of Appeal case of Jagged Globe and Harrison.
For further information please contact Holly Dobson at [email protected] or on 0114 224 2121
