Question

LEGAL PRINCIPLE: Employers/Principles are vicariously liable, under the respondent superior doctrine, for negligence acts or omissions by their employees/agents in the course of employment/agency. A servant/agent may be defined as any person employed by another to do work for him on the terms that he, the servant/agent, is to be subject to the control and directions of his employer/principal in respect of the manner in which his work is to be done.
FACTUAL SITUATION: A motor car was owned by and registered and insured in the name of A (wife) but was regarded by her and her husband (B) as "our car". B used it to go to work, and A for shopping at the weekends. B told A that if ever he was drunk and unfit to drive through, he would get a sober friend to drive him or else telephone her to come and fetch him. On the day in question the husband telephoned the wife after work and told her that he was going out with friends. He visited a number of public houses and had drinks. At some stage, he realised that he was unable to drive safely and asked a friend C, to drive. C drove them to other public houses. After the last visit, C offered the three friends (X,Y and Z) a lift and they got in, together with B who was in a soporific condition. C then proceeds, at his won suggestion, to drive in a direction away from the B's home to have a meal. On the way, due to C's negligent driving, an accident occurred in which both B and C were killed and the other friends got injured. X. Y and Z brought an action against the wife both in her personal capacity and as administrators of the husband's estate. Decide whether A is liable?
DECIDE.

• A. Yes, she was vicariously liable for the negligent driving of C as the principle of vicarious liability was to put responsibility on to the person, namely, in the case of a motor car, the owner, who ought in justice to bear it, and that in the case of a "family car" the owner was responsible for the use of it by the other spouse.
• B. No, C had not been the wife's agent in driving the husband about as he had been doing at the time of the accident. To fix vicarious liability on the owner of a motor car in a case such as the present, it must be shown that the driver was using it for the owner's purposes under delegation of a task or duty.
• C. No, because this is a case of volenti non fit injuria as C, Y and Z voluntarily took the lift knowing that C was also drunk.
• D. No, because C was not employed by A to drive her husband back to the home on the day of accident

Answer 1

The correct option is B No, C had not been the wife's agent in driving the husband about as he had been doing at the time of the accident. To fix vicarious liability on the owner of a motor car in a case such as the present, it must be shown that the driver was using it for the owner's purposes under delegation of a task or duty.

• The principle of respondeat superior, which is applicable to both master-servant and agent-principle relationships, states that a person is vicariously liable for the acts of his servant or agent. As per the famous Australian jurist Dal Pont, the need for fixing liability on the principal for acts of agents arises in three main situations:
  

(1) the principal has selected the agent and has done so after verifying the quality, strengths and weaknesses of the agent

(2) the agent has been asked to perform that particular duty and principal gains some benefit out of that act

(3) principal has given general authority to commit the wrong.

• The wife here has neither consented to appointing C as an agent to drive her car nor has C done the act within his scope of duty for the purpose of dropping B safely to a location.