There have been two recent interesting cases on vicarious liability which could well be worth a mention in any coursework you might be doing.
In Barclays Bank v Various Complainants, the court held that defendants could not be vicariously liable for the torts of independent contractors used by them. In this case a doctor contracted by Barclays to carry out medical assessments carried out a number of sexual assaults during the assessment consultations. Barclays must have heaved a big sigh of relief!
In WM Morrison Supermarkets plc v Various Complainants a disgruntled Morrison’s employee who worked on the company’s payroll and who was told to send it to external auditors decided to put all payroll information up onto an open internet site and also to send payroll details to national papers. In this case the court appears to have decided to bring an end to a widening of employers’ vicarious liability. Although processing the payroll data did fall within the employees role the publicising of the data was outside the course of his employment. Morrisons were not liable to their employees for the data breach.