Keenan and Riches’BUSINESS LAW

employee of B may be regarded for the purposes of
vicarious liability as being in the ‘employment’ of C.
Consideration has been given to the latest movement in
this area, which is, in appropriate circumstances, to find
joint vicarious liability, as in the ruling of the Court of
Appeal in Viasystems Ltdv Thermal Transfer (Northern)
Ltd(2005). What follows is a description of the general
law relating to vicarious liability.

Vicarious liability

As a result of this principle of the law an employer is
liable for damage caused to another person by his
employee, while the employee was carrying out his
work (or while he was in the course of employment, as
it is called). The principle applies whether the injury was
to an outsider or to a fellow employee (see further below).
The employer is liable even though he was not in any
way at fault and this rule, which seems at first sight to be
unfair to the employer, is based upon lawand policy.
So far as the law is concerned, employer and em-
ployee are regarded as associated parties in the business

in which both are engaged. If the amount of work

increases so that the owner of a business cannot do it all

with his own hands, he must employ other hands and is

in law responsible for the damage done by those hands

as he would be for damage done by his own.

The point of policy is to provide the injured person

with a defendant who is likely to be able to pay any

damages which the court may award. An employer

and the business generally profit from the employee’s

work and it is perhaps not entirely unreasonable that

the employer should compensate those who are injured

by the employee. The employer will normally insure

against the risk of liability and of course the cost of that

insurance is represented in the price at which the goods

or services of the business are sold. Thus, in the end, the

injured person is compensated by those members of the

public who buy the goods or services.

It is worth noting here that under the Employers’

Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 an employer

must insure himself against liability for bodily injury

or disease sustained by employees and arising out of and

in the course of their employment in Great Britain and

Part 4Business resources

494

STATUTORY RIGHTS IN RELATION TO SUNDAY SHOP WORK

You have become employed as a shop worker and are or can be required under your contract of

employment to do the Sunday work your contract provides for.

However, if you wish, you can give a notice, as described in the next paragraph, to your employer and you

will then have the right not to work in or about a shop which is open once three months have passed from

the date on which you gave the notice.

Your notice must –

be in writing;

be signed and dated by you;

say that you object to Sunday working.

For three months after you give the notice, your employer can still require you to do all the Sunday work

your contract provides for. After the three-month period has ended, you have the right to complain to an

employment tribunal if, because of your refusal to work on Sundays on which the shop is open, your

employer –

dismisses you, or

does something else detrimental to you, for example failing to promote you.

Once you have the rights described, you can surrender them only by giving your employer a further notice,

signed and dated by you, saying that you wish to work on a Sunday or that you do not object to Sunday

working and then agreeing with your employer to work on Sundays or on a particular Sunday.

Figure 16.2Prescribed form of statement re Sunday shop work
Source: http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employment/employment-legislation/employment-guidance/page17143.html