26.28Cox v Ministry of Justice [2016] UKSC 10, [2016] AC 660
A is vicariously liable for the torts of B who, whilst not being an employee, is undertaking activities as an integral part of A’s undertaking and for A’s benefit, rather than for an independent business, and where the risk arises out of A assigning B the activity that led to the tortious act
Facts: C, a catering manager employed at a prison, had been injured by the negligent act of a prisoner undertaking nominally paid prison work. C sued the Ministry of Justice for damages. The issue was, whether the Ministry of Justice was vicariously liable for the actions of the prisoner, given that the prisoner was not the Ministry of Justice’s employee.
Judgment: the Supreme Court (Neuberger, Hale, Dyson, Reed and Toulson JJSC) held that the Ministry of Justice was vicariously liable because the prisoner had been undertaking activities in furtherance of the Ministry of Justice’s aims, in the sense described in Various Claimants v Catholic Child Welfare Society [2012] UKSC 56, [2013] 2 AC 1 (‘the Christian Brothers case’):
24. Lord Phillips’s analysis in the Christian Brothers case wove together these related ideas so as to develop a modern theory of vicarious liability. The result of this approach is that a relationship other than one of employment is in principle capable of giving rise to vicarious liability where harm is wrongfully done by an individual who carries on activities as an integral part of the business activities carried on by a defendant and for its benefit (rather than his activities being entirely attributable to the conduct of a recognisably independent business of his own or of a third party), and where the commission of the wrongful act is a risk created by the defendant by assigning those activities to the individual in question.