Legal Doctrine of Respondent

In respect to the legal doctrine of respondent, the employer or the superior entity does become liable of the actions performed by the employee in the course of exercising duties that were in relation to the assigned task. The master always becomes responsible for his agent, employee or subordinate irrespective of the causes of the action provide what happed was in the course of assigned task or it was caused by the work give. If the employee was working under the scope of his employment, he transfers the entire liability to his master. The secret behind this legal concept is that whether there was a relationship between the master and the employer, (Kleinberger, 2002).

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We have three elements of respondent superior doctrine. We have the plaintiff who at any given time must prove that he or she was injured in the course of exercising assigned task. In this situation the plaintiff has a liability to prove that there we some injuries that occurred due to the tort and consequences resulted from intentional conduct or the agent neglected some points or steps. The transferor must be an employee of the defendant for the legal doctrine to be viable in the court of law. Give a situation whereby the defendant has no control to the agent; he is not liable for the agent stands to be liable of what might happen. The tort should be acted within the employed working conditions and that the tort was done by an employee, (Davant, 2002).


In common business operation setting, most of managers or the task payers do encounter difficulties of their employee’s behavior. In the beginning of 1991 the Supreme Court of Virginia had a case, Sayles v. Piccadilly Cafeterias, Inc., 242 Va. 328, 410 S.E.2d 632. This case was hard to answer due to the environment that it was conducted. There was Charles Stephen who was from a company’s function. During the party time, Stephen become intoxicated and a result of that, he drove his car in the opposite side where an accident was caused. Since Stephen was intoxicated due to the party provided by the company, the court held the company to be liable of what Stephen did although the mistake were his, (Davant, 2002).


Baker v SaintFrancisHospital, 2005 OK 36, 126 P.3d 602, was another type of case where decisions tend to be hard to make. In this case the Hospital was liable of a mistake done by a daycare operator. It was believed that the daycare hit the child when he or she was crying. Although the hospital tried to say tat the employer acted intentionally and outside the scope of work never passed. The reason behind it was that the worker was within his working environment thus the hospital was liable, (Kleinberger, 2002).


Incase of the independent contractor, the defendant may prove to be innocent if the grounds of independent takes place. Although this may be practiced and brought forward in the court of law, the aspect of negligent hiring must apply thus providing the tortfeasor innocence aspect which leads to liableness towards the employer.


                                                                                                                        Reference:


Davant, C. IV. (2002). “Employer Liability for Employee Fraud: Apparent Authority     or Respondeat Superior?” South Dakota Law Review 47 (fall): 554–582.

Kleinberger, D. S. (2002). “Respondeat Superior Run Amok.” Bench & Bar of            Minnesota 59 (November): 16.

Legal doctrine of Respondent. (2011). Retrieved from, http://www.spainchambers.com/Respondeat-Superior.pdf, on May 6, 2011





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