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Is a college vicariously liable for the acts of its students?
My son was clearing a jam in a wood chipper when another student thought it would be jolly funny to turn it on. End result was my son discovered how fast he could move backwards, some harsh words were exchanged, the other student was sent home for the rest of the day to reflect on his behaviour and my son was then lectured at great length by myself on making machinery safe and forced to watch the ‘lock out tag out’ video.
The end result is that my son is not likely to make the same mistake again and so I consider the whole event to have been a valuable learning experience.
However, I got to thinking, would vicarious liability apply in this type of case?
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A vicarious liability can be defined as the liability created by an action or non action by a person, working on behalf of him when he is responsible for all the action or inaction of such person within the limits of their association.
So when an employee or worker cause a loss to somebody in the normal course of his duty then the employer will be responsible for such loss. Example if a worker at a leisure centre cleans floor and leaves it wet and slippy and a member of public has accident due to this then employer (the lesiure centre) would have vicarious liability. Not sure this helps but may give you an idea.
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A passenger in a company vehicle who accompanies the driver in having a drink who then causes an accident? Is the passenger vicariously liable?
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Don't know about vicarious liability for acts of a student - but the college is definitely liable for the actions of the member of staff who was meant to be supervising this session.
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ChrisBurns wrote:A passenger in a company vehicle who accompanies the driver in having a drink who then causes an accident? Is the passenger vicariously liable?
I think that would depend on what level of control (if any) the passenger had over the driver. Would the passenger be vicariously liable if the driver were their manager?
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I found some further info for you.
"Higher education institutions and their governing bodies can be held to be vicariously liable for the actions of staff and students for actions carried out in the HEI’s name. This liability applies even if the action was not authorised by the HEI.
To avoid vicarious liability, an HEI would have to demonstrate that the member of staff or student was not negligent, i.e. that they had taken reasonable care, or that the member of staff or student was acting in his/her own right rather than on institutional business. Hope this helps more than previous post.
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Thanks for that. It would appear that the answer is yes, the college is vicariously liable.
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Interesting one Jeni, I think the college would be at fault due to lack of supervision, training and hope you have pointed this out to them.
But under other circumstances Vicarious liability would be interesting in relation to students.
Phil
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JYoung wrote:
or that the member of staff or student was acting in his/her own right rather than on institutional business. .
I take it as we are dealing with a college rather than a school the attendees would be adults rather than children so I would expect the supervision provided would not be to the standard expected in say a woodworking department in a secondary school.
The fool that switched machine on was acting as an individual IMHO not as an employee and to switch a machine on with someone arms deep in its workings would be considered a reckless act.
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Dazzling Puddock wrote:
The fool that switched machine on was acting as an individual IMHO not as an employee and to switch a machine on with someone arms deep in its workings would be considered a reckless act.
But if the college own the equipment or at least it's on their premises they should be responsible for either training those in it's correct use or if they should have not been anywhere near the equipment then it should have been made safe by the worker using also lack of supervision of the student or work area by the worker or their supervisor.
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I believe that the college would be vicariously liable but that would be way down the list of failings in their duty of care to the student.
As already mentioned the degree of supervision and the auditable training, instruction, information provided could be the first stone to turn over.
Then the list could get even longer "Permit to Work i.e. clear the blockage" Isolation etc.
Having seen the result of a leg going into a wood chipper by a person who thought he could clear a blockage by kicking the log doing the blocking, the outcome in this case was thankfully very sore ears and
hopefully a better understanding of the stupidity of playing "jokes" with moving machinery
Take Care
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I am always amazed to see how easily people can determine liability. Of course it generally either has to be accepted or 'found'. The example sounds like a bit of a 'frolic' to me, and in an employers case, the employer may well NOT be found vicariously liable for the 'frolic' of an employee, but normally only for those acts carried out in the course of their employment. I wonder if a similar situation may apply here?
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I think I'm siding with Phil on this one. Without being there it's a difficult one to call. Although in theory the college may well be liable but surely it would have to be proven against previous cases?
By the sounds of it the incident was over in a few seconds - could the lecturer really be expected to intervene and stop the eejit who switched it on?
How big was the class?
And I think there's a tendency in these situations to assume that the college doesn't have procedures like permit-to-work in place. Which is I think a little unkind and, dare I say, unprofessional - unless of course we have first hand experience of it. It's all to easy to sit behind our PC screens and pass comment without knowing all the facts. Maybe - and I know it's a long shot but - what if the persons involved disregarded the safe procedures that had been explained to them?
I know. A controversial one.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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It's been a while since unit A...
I knew the answer at the being but am now really confused :)
I did think the answer was yes - if there had been an injury as a result of horse play, or even a deliberate rule break then the employer would be vicariously liable.
The reason is that if the plaintiff (is that the right word) sued the other student they wouldn't get far. The employer also has a legal requirement to be insured.
SO YES. - It's the milk float case law isn't it?
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Rank: Guest
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teh_boy wrote:
The reason is that if the plaintiff (is that the right word) sued the other student they wouldn't get far. The employer also has a legal requirement to be insured.
The legal requirement is in relation to negligence of employees.
In this situation, if anyone was injured, it would be necessary to show the college (or one of its employees) was negligent.
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The college could be liable and could be sued, however, if they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent such incident, even if an accident did happen, I don't think the IP would get much out of them. I would expect that the college instructs not only their staff but the pupils on the safe methods of clearing jams and the correct isolation procedures to prevent unexpected equipment start and adequate supervision depending on the level of expertise of the pupils considering also their ages. There are many more things that would play an important part in demonstrating that the college has in fact taken reasonable measures but all in all they could be liable.
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Both my son and the student who turned the chipper on are 16 - so fall into that not quite adult category. Incident occured on fouth day of course and so I would have expected a high level of supervision. However, having said that I am not sure that you can ever fully protect against acts of gross stupidity and the student in question has now been ejected from the course permanently for blatent disregard of tutors instuctions (luckily no more near misses). My son has now learnt that you cannot rely on co-workers to be sensible - a valuable lesson in life.
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I believe there is a potential laibility on the college and that they would have to demonstrate they had done all that was reasonable to prevent an injury. For example have the students been instructed on the safe way to clear machines, including isolation? have they been told not to intefere with equipment that others are working on? etc. In other words have they done what is required to protect persons not in their employment but who may be affected by their activities. In an educational environment I would suggest that it is reasonably foreseeable that other students may do daft things and therefore it should be looked at as to what is reasonable to protect against this.
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College being potentially held responsible and vicarious liability are two different things. The legal postion is that the employer's vicarious liability rests on the actions of the employee.
"The House of Lords has held that the test for deciding employer’s vicarious liability should focus on whether the act of the employee had a sufficiently close connection to the employment.
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Rank: Super forum user
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My understanding of vicarious liability is that it is a form of strict liability. In relation to an employee-employer relationship it means that if an employee does something that stupid in the course of their work the employer carries then can-full stop. The employer cannot argue due diligence or anything else. The only defence is that the act was outside of the employee's job spec- which the courts have tended to interpret wider than a simple job description (Competing buses case anyone?).
A student is not an employee; therefore vicarious liability does not apply. In the circumstances described the college might be liable on the grounds that they were not supervising the student BUT this is not the same as vicarious liability as the college could argue that the level of supervision was what you might reasonably expect and that they could not be expected to do more.
That’s my tuppence worth.
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A very interesting topic.....give it to the NEBOSH Diploma students as a question.....
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Vicariously liable for a near miss? I thought no-one got hurt or are we just lining up for a claim just in case. Why not ask to see the risk assessment, method statement etc for the clearing or cleaning of the equipment, have they inform the students that they shouldn't unblock the equipment but inform the supervisor. Try working with them not against.
At present I am dealing with a claim made when the person who was a student was hurt when he was involved in horse play.
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Not considering compensation for a near miss. More just wondering what the situation would have been if it had NOT been a near miss.
In this case just satisfying my curiousity (thank goodness).
Farrell - I would be very interested in the outcome of the case you are dealing with if you would consider sharing?
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