Under what circumstances can an employer be held vicariously liable for the torts committed by his/her employees? Why should one person be held liable for the tortious acts of another?

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Under what circumstances can an employer be held vicariously liable for the torts

committed by his/her employees? Why should one person be held liable for the tortious acts of another?

Introduction
The essay topic relates to situations in which one person is responsible for the torts committed by someone else; this is known as vicarious liability. Vicarious liability arises where the employer has done nothing wrong but where a tortuous act has been committed by an employee. This means that the employer who is not at fault will still have to pay damages.
The essay seeks to answer the following questions:
1. What is the difference between employees and self-employed?
2. What is vicarious liability?
3. Why should one person be held liable for the tortious acts of another?
4. Under what circumstances can an employer be held vicariously liable for the torts committed by his/her employees?

Employees and independent contractors
To begin with, at first glance it seems easy to tell whether a person is an employee or not, but a distinction was made between employees, whose actions could give rise to vicarious liability, and independent contractors, whose actions do not.
Over the years the courts have developed a number of different tests for deciding whether a particular individual is an employee or not. One of the most popular methods was to look at the degree of control exercised over that person’s work by the supposed employer. If a person was told not only what job to do, but also the way in which to do it, then he/she was regarded as an employee.
 (in a factory, for example, a staff member working full-time helping to produce the goods the company sells).
Another alternative was the integrative test, according to which a person would be an employee if their work was an integral part of the business.
Today the courts have abandoned the search for any single factor to act as a test and will look at the circumstances of the particular case.

Why are the employers vicariously liable for the torts committed by their employees?
Where an employee commits a tort during the course of his/her employment the employee will be made financially responsible. Provided that the employee is doing basically what he/she is employed to do then there will be liability even if the employer has forbidden the act. So, basically, for an employer to be made vicariously liable for the tortuous acts of their employees the tort must be committed within the course of employment.
But why should the employer be held liable for the wrongful acts of their employee as long as he/she is not involved in them?
  1. The employer has control over their employee therefore he is responsible for the acts of them.

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   2. The employer was careless in selecting an employee who was negligent and therefore he must accept responsibility.

   3. The employer derives benefit from the service of the employee, so he must take the burdens as well.

   4. The employer is in a better position than the employee to compensate the victim of the tort.

Working within the course of employment
I am going to discuss some general circumstances in which an employer is vicariously liable for the torts committed by their employees within the course of employment.
Negligent and careless acts
As Salmond stated in his textbook, a wrongful ...

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