Vicarcious Liability of Driver-Case Study
Vicarcious Liability of Driver-Case Study
SUBMITTED BY
NIHAL KUMAR
1 YEAR BA LLB(HONS.)
ST
TO
DIRECTOR
That legal obligation typically arises from the law and/or from a contract, most
commonly an insurance contract (also known as an insurance policy):
Fault for the Accident
The law assigns liability for a car accident in several ways. First, and most
importantly, the party at fault for a crash generally owes financial compensation
to anyone who suffers injuries in it.
The most common form of fault in the law is negligence, which occurs when:
A driver breaches that duty of care by, for example, speeding, driving drunk, or
texting-and-driving. If those (or any other) unreasonably dangerous activities
while driving cause an accident that injures others, the law deems that driver
negligent and the driver will owe financial compensation to the crash victims.
In addition to negligence, the law can assign fault for an accident in other ways.
We will have to see different scenarios where liability in case of accident can be
decided :
First, as we’ve explained, the general rule is that an at-fault driver who causes
an accident through negligence or other blameworthy conduct will have a legal
liability to the victims of a crash. Those victims will usually have the right to
take legal action against the driver for monetary damages unless they registered
their car in a no-fault insurance state and their own no-fault insurance covers all
of their injuries and losses.
Next, if the vehicle owner was the driver’s employer, and the owner allowed the
driver to use the car knowing that the driver was dangerous or incompetent, or if
the accident happened, then chances are good that the owner will also have a
legal liability to the crash victims.
In the past, a defendant would only have been vicariously liable for
the negligence of a driver if the driver was acting in the course of their
employment for the defendant. The law has developed significantly since then.
If the driver was not an employee of the defendant, a potential claimant will
now need to consider the relationship between the driver and the defendant and
the connection between that relationship and the driver’s negligence.
A personal injury claimant will typically be seeking to establish the fault,
whether negligence or breach of a statutory duty, of the identified defendant (for
instance the employer). However, an alternative route to liability may often be
available—that of the vicarious liability of the employer for the act or omission
of its employee or agent.
Vicarious liability has developed steadily. Originally, the application of the
doctrine was largely confined to the simple case of the employee in the course
of their duties negligently causing injury to another person, often a fellow
employee. The claimant was required to show that the negligence or other
breach of duty (usually an act rather than an omission) was committed by an
employee acting in the course of their duties. Where this is established, liability
is said to be strict in the sense that there is no requirement to establish fault on
the part of the employer.
If someone takes a car without permission and gets into an accident, the owner
is not responsible. However, if the driver was uninsured, injured victims may
still be able to make claims against the owner’s insurance .
Here difficult thing is to decide driver’s liability in the cases of accident,
because its not fair to declare the owner always liable just due to the reason that
the owner had employed him for his services. In my view law should be
constructive in nature to see every aspect of the matter where someone else
have to suffer for any one else act. Although it is acceptable in civil case at
some extent where owner have to only compensate for driver’s act which have
occurred loss to plaintiff, but if same picture we apply in to criminal cases,
where not only fine but punishment is also applicable. Then the harsh side of
deciding the liability comes.
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