Vicarious liability; agency workers; the 'general' employer retains liability unless transfer of control is absolute.
Vicarious liability; employee's indemnity to employer; implied terms. A lorry driver reversing in the course of his employment injured his father, a fellow employee; the employer's insurers, subrogated to the employer, sued the driver. The House of Lords (Viscount Simonds, Lord Morton of Henryton and Lord Tucker; Lord Radcliffe and Lord Somervell of Harrow dissenting) held that an employee owes an implied contractual duty to perform his work with reasonable care, so an employer held vicariously liable for the employee's negligence can recover the damages from him; there is no implied term that the employer will indemnify the employee or insure for his benefit. Employers' liability insurers agreed in 1959 not to enforce such rights save for collusion or wilful misconduct. Restated without qualification in Lifestyle Equities CV v Ahmed [2024] UKSC 17 at [36], and relied on in ABC v Huntercombe [2026] EWCA Civ 1161 at [46] for the proposition that vicarious liability gives the employee no protection in law.
I Ll.LR 1 - Vicarious liability; fraud; employer liable for fraud of employee acting within apparent authority.
Racial harassment; vicarious liability; course of employment. The Court of Appeal held that 'in the course of employment' in the Race Relations Act 1976 must be given a broad, purposive interpretation, it is not to be equated with the common law tortious test. Acts of racial harassment by fellow employees can fall within the course of employment even where they are outside the employer's instructions, so long as they occur in a work context.
Harassment; vicarious liability; social events (e.g. pub drinks) immediately after work are 'in the course of employment'.
TUPE; transfer of a transferor's vicarious liability in tort to a third party; "under or in connection with" the contract of employment; reg.5(2)(a) of TUPE 1981 (now reg.4(2)(a) of TUPE 2006). Mr Doane, then playing for Sheffield United, was injured in an allegedly negligent tackle by Darren Holloway, then a Wimbledon FC player, whose employment later transferred under TUPE to Milton Keynes Dons.
Discrimination; liability; tainted information; composite decision-making rejected. The Court of Appeal held that liability for a discriminatory act attaches to the individual whose own mental processes were tainted by the protected characteristic. A decision-maker who acts innocently on information supplied by another is not liable merely because that information was tainted, and the employer is not liable through the innocent act for the supplier's motivation: the separate-acts approach, under which the claim lies against the person who supplied the tainted information if that supply was itself a detriment. Later qualified for unfair dismissal by Royal Mail Group Ltd v Jhuti; held not to extend to s.47B detriment claims in William v Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust.
Agency; liability; a principal is only liable for an agent's act under s.109 EqA if the agent's act is itself a contravention of the EqA.
TUPE; transfer of tortious liability; reg 4(2). An electrical engineer whose employment transferred under TUPE was electrocuted after the transfer because of a wiring defect his former employer had negligently failed to detect on a periodic inspection before it. The High Court (Amanda Yip QC sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge) held that the transferor's liability for the injury passed to the transferee under reg 4(2): tortious liabilities transfer whether accrued or contingent at the date of transfer, and an act or omission of the transferor before the transfer is deemed the transferee's under reg 4(2)(b). Explained in ABC v Huntercombe [2026] EWCA Civ 1161 at [62]-[63] as a liability owed to the transferring employee himself, of the kind reg 11 employee liability information would disclose.
Vicarious liability; a company was vicariously liable for its managing director's assault on an employee at an impromptu drinking session after the office Christmas party: there was a sufficient connection between his field of activities (he had chosen to exercise managerial authority in the argument) and the assault. Emphatically not authority that employers are insurers for all violence between colleagues.
Vicarious Liability; data breach; employer not liable for a rogue employee's data leak committed for personal vendetta.
Vicarious Liability; independent contractors; bank not liable for sexual assaults by an independent contractor doctor (distinct from employees).
Vicarious Liability; negligence; employer not liable for a practical joke (exploding pellets) by a contractor/employee as it was not in the course of employment.
Vicarious Liability; 'close connection'; further narrowing of the test; rape committed by an elder was not closely connected to his role.
TUPE; transfer of liability; discrimination by a transferring employee. The EAT (Judge Stout) held that an employer's liability under ss.39 and 40 of the Equality Act 2010 for discrimination and harassment by one of its employees is a primary liability, not a vicarious one, so it does not pass to a transferee under reg 4(2)(a) merely because the perpetrator's employment transferred; the same applies to liability for the resulting constructive dismissal [32]-[33]. Doane v Wimbledon FC, a county court decision that a transferor's vicarious liability in negligence transfers with the tortfeasor, was persuasive on its own facts but does not govern statutory liability under the 2010 Act [30]-[32]. The victim, whose own employment had not transferred, keeps his claim against the original employer. The employer's appeal against the refusal of its late amendment to plead the transfer was dismissed [47].
Whistleblowing; the Court of Appeal called for legislative reform, stating they would have departed from Timis v Osipov if not bound by it; confirmed that an employee can bring a dismissal detriment claim against their employer under s.47B ERA 1996.
TUPE; vicarious liability; reg 4(2)(a); 'in connection with'. A former psychiatric in-patient sued the hospital operator, H Ltd, for the alleged torts of employees whose employment later transferred under TUPE to AYP Ltd; H Ltd was in liquidation with a £250,000 per-claim insurance deductible. The Court of Appeal (Coulson LJ, Bean LJ and Sir Launcelot Henderson agreeing) held that reg 4(2)(a) does not extend to the transferor's vicarious liability to third parties for the pre-transfer acts and omissions of employees [73]. The Regulations are construed from the purpose of the Acquired Rights Directive, which is to safeguard employees' rights [25]-[35]: vicarious liability is a secondary liability parasitic on the employee's own, gives the employee no right or protection (the employer holds a Lister v Romford indemnity) [43]-[49], so does not arise 'in connection with' the contract [51]; reg 11 requires disclosure of employee claims only, so Parliament deliberately left third-party claims outside the scheme [52]-[54]; and a third party suing a transferee for events it had no part in would need clear permissive words, of which there are none [57]. Doane v Wimbledon FC disapproved [50]; Martin/Bernadone and Baker v British Gas explained as liabilities owed to the transferring employee [62]-[67]. The High Court's 'direct' and 'fundamental' formulations were dropped as apt to generate argument [68], [73]. At first instance HHJ Bird had reached the same result on a preliminary issue, [2025] EWHC 1000 (KB).
TUPE; Vicarious liability; rejected the view that a third party could sue the transferee based on secondary liability arising from the actions of an employee whose contract of employment has been transferred. The liabilities to which TUPE refers in Reg 4(2)(a) are liabilities owed to the person transferred, not liabilities owed to third parties.