Vicarious liability: a Supreme Court double header

Vicarious liability was considered in two unanimous Supreme Court decisions issued in March which clarify the circumstances in which vicarious liability can be imposed.

In Cox v Ministry of Justice [2016] UKSC 10 the MoJ, on behalf of the prison service, was held vicariously liable for the negligent act of a prisoner working in a prison kitchen.

The MoJ had argued against vicarious liability on the basis that the relationship between the prison service and prisoners was fundamentally different from an employer/employee relationship.

The Supreme Court gave guidance on the factors which would be significant in determining whether a relationship gave rise to vicarious liability. These included the fact that the benefit which the defender derives from the wrongdoer’s activities need not be financial, but the wrongdoer must be carrying out activities assigned to him by the defender as an integral part of the defender’s operation. By assigning those activities to the wrongdoer, the defender must have created a risk that the wrong will be committed. In this case, the prisoner working in the prison kitchen fulfilled these criteria and vicarious liability was established.

This case was heard alongside Mohamud v WM Morrison Supermarkets plc [2016] UKSC 11, which addressed the way in which the wrongdoer’s conduct has to be related to the relationship between the wrongdoer and the defender to give rise to vicarious liability.

A customer claimed damages after being assaulted by a supermarket employee. He argued that the supermarket was vicariously liable for the assault, but was initially unsuccessful as it was held that there was not a sufficiently close connection between the assault and what the worker had been employed to do.

Basically, the Supreme Court considered: (a) what functions had been entrusted by the employer to the employee (this had to be addressed broadly); and (b) whether there was a sufficient connection between the wrongful conduct and the employee’s role to make it right for the employer to be vicariously liable.

The supermarket employee had been trusted with the role of serving customers and, although his actions were a gross abuse of that position, these were carried out in connection with the business in which he was employed and his employers were vicariously liable.