VICARIOUS LIABILITY

Vicarious Liability: Criminal or Civil Liability



Vicarious Liability: Criminal or Civil Liability

Introduction

Through an investigation of a news station, it was uncovered that a total of fourteen individuals hired at the local police station had former felony records. The crimes in their records range from drug convictions to aggravated assault, auto theft to robbery. This investigation was conducted after a series of high-profile charges of police misconduct, which included money laundering, assault, sexual assault, and extortion, by the police officers. Further investigation discovered that over fifty officers hired in the local police station had previous criminal records including blackmail, extortion, solicitation of prostitution, domestic violence, and two found guilty of hate crimes.

As per the above scenario, the argument is that the chief of police and HR director are responsible for approving the hiring of individuals, and they must be brought up on criminal charges for hiring these individuals. The appropriate decision of pressing criminal charges against the chief of police and HR director needs to be decided. This paper deals with the application of vicarious liability and whether the chief and director should be held criminally liable or if the agency should be held civilly liable.

Discussion

In this case, vicarious liability applies. Vicarious liability is the responsibility of the head, and the founder of another individual for improper fulfillment of obligations to creditors by law or contract. Vicarious liability is “the tort doctrine that imposes responsibility upon one person for the failure of another, with whom the person has a special relationship (such as Parent and Child, employer and employee, or owner of the vehicle and driver), to exercise such care as a reasonably prudent person would use under similar circumstances.” Vicarious liability means that one party or entity is (vicariously) liable for the negligence committed by another. When applied in the employer-employee context, the term is known as respondent superior, which is Latin for “let the superior answer.” This doctrine applies to employers who are responsible for most torts committed by their employees. For example, if you are driving down the road and a truck driver employed by Ace Trucking Company negligently hits your car, you can sue not only the truck driver but also Ace Trucking Company. The general rule is that employers are vicariously liable for the acts of their employees (McKendrick, 1990).

Employers are not liable for the torts of independent contractors. Thus, an important legal question in many tort cases is whether an alleged individual is an employee or an independent contractor. Take the example of a newspaper delivery person who negligently hits another vehicle (Dressler, 2001). The question becomes whether the newspaper company can be sued for the action of the delivery person.

The legal doctrine assigns the liability for the crime or injury to the individual who has not committed the crime but has a certain legal relation with the person responsible for the negligible act. The legal relation between the two individuals includes parent and child, husband and wife, driver and the owner of ...