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Negligence and Respondeat Superior: Should Employers be Held Responsible for Employee Negligence?
Negligence
"A person has acted negligently if he or she has departed from the conduct expected of a reasonably prudent person acting under similar circumstances" (West, 2008). To establish a claim of negligence, a plaintiff has to establish four elements: duty of care, breach of duty, factual causation, and damages (Berry, Sahradnik, Kotzas, & Benson, 2013). The duty of care element means that, even if a person failed to act with reasonable care, he cannot be held liable in a negligence action unless he owed a duty to the plaintiff. However, a person is generally "under a duty to all persons at all times to exercise reasonable care for their physical safety and the safety of their property" (West, 2008). The breach of duty requires that the person fail to act as a reasonable person would have in that same situation. In some states and some circumstances, how a reasonable person would act is defined by statute or informed by other statutes. Factual causation means that the injury or damage must have been the result of...
The final element in a negligence case is establishing that there were damages, or some harm suffered as a result of the defendant's negligence.
Respondeat Superior
One of the more interesting concepts in negligence law is the concept of respondeat superior in which an employer can be held liable for negligent actions of the employee, even though the employer did not cause the damages in question. Generally, respondeat superior refers to the idea that "an employer or principal legally responsible for the wrongful acts of an employee or agent, if such acts occur within the scope of the employment or agency" (Legal Information Institute, 2010). This doctrine is critical for employers because it makes them responsible for some employee bad acts. Therefore, employers should use greater discretion in the hiring process and, if an employee fails to exercise reasonable care should remedy that through improved training or workplace disciplinary programs or terminate the employee.
Wilson v. United States
In Wilson v. United States, 989 F. 2d 953 (8th Cir. 1993),…
References
Berry, Sahradnik, Kotzas, & Benson. (2013). The four elements of negligence. Retrieved August 29, 2013 from JD Supra Law News website: http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-four-elements-of-negligence-52408/
Legal Information Institute. (2010). Respondeat superior. Retrieved August 29, 2013 from Cornell University Law School website: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/respondeat_superior
West's Encyclopedia of American Law. (2008). Negligence. Retrieved August 29, 2013 from The Free Dictionary website: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/negligence
Wilson v. United States, 989 F. 2d 953 (8th Cir. 1993). Retrieved August 29, 2013 from Open
Jurist website: http://openjurist.org/989/f2d/953
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