Other Relations that Attract Vicarious Liability

In one line

Besides master and servant, vicarious liability arises between principal and agent, between partners, and where an owner casually entrusts a dangerous thing to somebody to do his work.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the relations that attract vicarious liability are master and servant, principal and agent, partners in a firm, a company and those through whom it acts, and, in India, an owner who entrusts his vehicle to another to be driven for his purposes, which is called casual delegation; the common element is that the wrongdoer was doing the defendant's work with his authority, express or implied.

Principal and agent

Section 182 of the Indian Contract Act 1872 defines an agent as a person employed to do any act for another or to represent another in dealings with third persons, and the person for whom the act is done is the principal.

Section 188 provides that an agent having authority to do an act has authority to do every lawful thing necessary in order to do it, and that an agent authorised to carry on a business has authority to do every lawful thing necessary for that purpose or usually done in the course of conducting it.

Section 238 provides that misrepresentations made, or frauds committed, by agents acting in the course of their business for their principals have the same effect on agreements made by such agents as if the misrepresentations or frauds had been made or committed by the principals; but misrepresentations or frauds which do not fall within their authority do not affect their principals.

The tort rule matches. A principal is liable for a tort committed by his agent within the scope of the authority conferred, whether that authority is express, implied or apparent, and the test of scope is the same idea as the course of employment in chapter [Course of Employment].

Partners

Partners are agents of the firm and of one another for the purposes of the business, so a tort committed by one partner in the ordinary course of the business makes all of them liable, jointly and severally, and the firm's property answers as well.

Companies

A company acts through people. It is liable for the torts of its servants and agents in the ordinary way, and in addition the acts of those who are its directing mind are treated as its own acts rather than as somebody else's for which it is vicariously liable.

Casual delegation, and the owner of a vehicle

This is the Indian branch that matters most in practice, because it is how the owner of a car is made liable for the driving of a friend or a relative.