Liability of Masters for Torts Committed by Their Servants: A Socio-Legal Analysis, Summaries of Law

Download Liability of Masters for Torts Committed by Their Servants: A Socio-Legal Analysis and more Summaries Law in PDF only on Docsity! THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY I If a master choose to give orders to his servant, no one can fail to understand why he should be held liable for the conse- quences of their commission.' Nor is the case in substance dif- ferent when he ratifies his servant's act. To stamp what is done for him with the seal of his approval is tacitly, but obviously, to accept the act as his own ;2 and that is true no less where the ratification is implicit, than where it is expressly made manifest.3 No one, however, deems it necessary to take objection to lia- bility which is consequent upon a general negligence.4 I may knowingly employ a clearly incompetent person.' I may con- sciously fail to provide proper means for the performance of the allotted work. I may fail to give my servant information which I know to be essential to the right completion of his task.7 I may fail to take adequate precautions against the commission of a tort in my presence.8 In cases such as these, where the master is directly involved, it is essential to any scheme of law that he should be held liable for such damage as his servant may cause. The problem is far different where express authority does not exist. A state in which it is an accepted doctrine that the sins of the servant may, even when unauthorized, be visited upon the master, has won a tolerable respect for its law. Yet the thing is sufficiently novel to be worth some careful investigation. In no branch of legal thought are the principles in such sad con- 'Doctor and Student, I, ix; Lucas v. Mason (1875) Io Ex. 251; Smith v. Keal (1882) 9 Q. B. D. 34o.2 Bishop v. Montague (16oo) Cro. Eliz. II, 824; Padget v. Priest (1787) 2 T. P. 97; Ewbank v. Nutting (1849) 7 C. B. 797; Dempsey v. Chambers (1891) 154 Mass. 330. 3 Goff v. G. N. R. Co. (1861) 3 E. & E. 672; Walker v. S. E. Ry. Co. (1870) 5 C. P. 640. 4 Wanstallv. Pooley (1841) 6 C1. & F. gio; Dansey v. Richardson (1854) 3 El. & BI. 144; Cox v. Central Vermont Ry. Co. (1898) 17o Mass. 129. 5 Cutler v. Morrison (igio) 43 Pa. Sup. Ct. 55; Martin v. Richards (1892) I55 Mass. 381. 6 Mitchell v. Boston & Maine R. R. Co. (1894) 68 N. H. 96. 7 Fletcher v. Baltimore & P. R. R. Co. (1897) 168 U. S. 135. 8 M'Laughlin v. Pryor (842) 4 Man. & G. 58. [105] YALE LAW JOURNAL fusion. Nowhere has it been so difficult to win assent to what some have deemed fundamental dogma.9 Nor is this all. What principles-even if of a conflicting kind-have yet emerged are comparatively new in character. They do not go back to that venerable time when Richard I endowed the Anglo-Saxon race with legal memory. There is no trace of them in Bracton. 10 The Year-Books do not aid us.11 Coke-it seems marvellous enough-is silent upon them; or, at any rate, it is a different tale he has to tell. Our theories come in with the Revolution of i688, and they bear the impress of a single, vivid personality. So that if they have a history, it is short enough to raise deep questions. And, indeed, it must be admitted that the problems inherent in our principles are very formidable. There is no field of law into which they do not seem to enter. Contract, tort, negilgence-in all of these they have their word to say, and it is a word of growing import for our time.2 The age has passed when each man might bear untroubled the burden of his own life; to-day, the complexities of social organization seem, too often, to have cast us, like some Old Man of the Sea, upon the shoulders of our fellows. Where, above all the men of Mediaeval England gloried in their own labor, we, or, at least, many of us, take pleasure in dividends that have been vicariously earned. It is an age of abundant service. Vast numbers are working for other men and obeying their commands. Service implies action. A tells B to perform some work. When B's work entails loss to C, what is the relation of A to the transaction? We have maxims and to spare upon this question. Respondeat superior is an argument which, like David, has slain its tens of thousands. Its seeming simplicity conceals in fact a veritable hornet's nest of stinging difficulties. It is the merest dogma, 9 See Mr. Baty's fierce attack in his brilliant, if perverse, Vicarious Liability (I915). Dean Thayer in the posthumous paper published in 29 -ABv. L. REv. Soi has suggested sdme interesting possibilities of future development. 10 Cf. Bracton ff. Iisb, i24b, i58, 7a, i7:2b, 2o4b. 11 Prof. Wigmore in 7 HARv. L. REV. 315 has cited some evidence to the contrary, but it is hardly decisive. The cases which foreshadow the mod- ern doctrine are conceived with special duties. Cf. Cowell, Institutes, p. 207; Southern v. Howe, Cro. Jac. 468; Noy, Maxims, chap. xliv. For the general rule, see Rolle, Abridgment, tit. Action on the Case, pl. 95; Wal- thain v. Mulgar (16o6) Moore, 776. 12 Cf. Dr. Baty's remark that the modern law is injuring industry, op. cit. p. 154. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY authorization, important statutory exceptions apart, is still neces- sary; for the law still places motive at the basis of criminal liability.25 Yet, even when these limitations are considered, the scope-as Jessel thought too vast 2 -- of this extension is indeed remarkable. Almost within a century the doctrines of hallowed antiquity are reversed. No attention, as it seems, is paid to historic antecedent. The whole change is, so one may urge, outstanding proof of the oft-controverted fact that judges can and do make law. Clearly, good reason is essential for so strik- ing a revolution of opinion. Here is the crux of the problem; for it must be admitted, that so far in legal theory if we have a multiplicity of theories, none has brought widespread satisfaction. Some, indeed, are frankly impossible. It is not very helpful to be told by authority so distinguished as Parke, 27 as Alderson,28 as Cranworth, 29 that qui facit per odium is the basis of the liability; for, as we have seen, that, in strict fact, can be true only where the master's assent is proved. The quasi-scientific mind of Lord Brougham ascribed the doctrine to the fact that "by employing him, I set the whole thing in motion, and what he does, being done for my benefit, and under my direction, I am responsible for the consequences of doing it '"3 0-a niggardly determinism which, from its concealed fictions, serves only to darken counsel; and it has the additional demerit of being logically as extensible to the work of an independent contractor, where vicarious lia- bility does not ordinarily apply, as to that of a servant, or agent where it does. Mr. Justice Willes, of whose opinion Mr. Baty seems to approve,31 grounds our dogma on the fact that "there ought to be a remedy against some person capable of paying damages to those injured."3 2 But it is clear that if this is the path 2 5R. v. Huggins (730) 2 Str. 882; Bagge v. Whitehead [1892] 2 Q. B. 355.26 SInith v. Keal (1882) 9 Q. B. D. 35r. 27 Quartnan v. Burnett (840) 6 M. & W. 509. 28 iIutchison v. York, Newcastle Ry. Co. (0850) 5 Ex. 343. 29 Bartonshill Coal Co. v. Reid (1858) 3 Macq. 266. 3 0 Duncan vz. Finlater (i839) CI. & F. 894, 9io. I ought to add that this theory seems to command the assent of Dean Wigmore, 3 Select Essays in Anglo-American Law, 536. See Parke's criticism of it in Quarman v. Burnett, ut supra. 81 Baty, op. cit. p. 154. s2 Limpus v. Gen. Omnibus Co., ut supra. One has a troubled feeling that Maitland might have endorsed this dictum, 2 P. & M. 533. YALE LAW JOURNAL the law ought, as a general rule, to follow, it is going to have small concern with justice. The great Pothier ascribed its force to the necessity of making men careful in the selection of their servants ;33 yet it is clear that in the vast majority of cases that have arisen, no such negligence has ever been alleged. Nor will anyone dream to-day of accepting the view of the unctuous Bacon, that the liability arises from our failure to do our own work-a failure permitted by an indulgent law on the condition that we bear an absolute responsibility for such delegation.3 ' Sir Frederick Pollock-with far more reason-urges that as all business is a dangerous enterprise, boldness must pay its price.3 The "implied command" theory has nothing rational about it; it is one of those dangerous and disagreeable fictions which persist as a method from a primitive stage of law.38 And Maitland has slain the equally hopeless fiction of an imaginary identification of master and servant derived from the jurispru- dence of Rome.3 7 Nor is the opinion of Lord Holt-which derives a special importance from its historical setting-in any way more adequate. It seemed to him simply a principle of natural justice that where one of two innocent persons must suf- fer through the fraud of a third, the suffering must be borne by the master who, in employing that third party, enabled the fraud to be committed.3 8 The view is little more than that later adumbrated by Lord Brougham, though it is more plausibly arrayed. All torts are not deceits, and it would be difficult, for example, to apply such a test to the situation in Lunt v. North- Western Ry. Co., where the defendant's gatekeeper invited the plaintiff in entire good faith to pass over a railway crossing, 9 or where a tramway conductor honestly, but mistakenly, sus- pects a passenger of tendering a counterfeit half-sovereign, and 33 Pothier, Obligations (trans. Evans) p. 72. 34Abridgment (ed. 1832), tit. Master and Servant (K.) iv. 336. 35 See his paper on Employer's Liability in his Essays on Jurisprudence and Ethics. 36 Below, sec. IV. 3T P. & M. II, 530. I say this with deep respect, for Mr. Justice Holmes has given his weighty support to this theory, 4 HAuv. L. REv. 345-64, and 5 HAzv. L. Rav. 1-23; but as Wigmore (op. cit. 533 n. I.) has pointed out, his illustrations are mainly derived from West, Symboleography of which the relation to the civil law makes it at once suspect. 88 In Hern v. Nichols, ut supra. 39 (I866) L. R. i Q. B. 277. IIO THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY gives him in charge.40 Lord Bramwell gave up the law alto- gether. "I have never been able," he told the Parliamentary Committee of 1876,4 ' "to see why the law should be so-why a man should be liable for the negligence of his servant, there being no relation constituted between him and the party com- plaining." Nor did Mr. Justice Wright attempt any explanation of the law beyond its universality.42 II That universality is notable. The law of a business world is not made for amusement. Some solid reality there must have been in the reasons for its acceptance; and its very persistence in the face of bitter criticism is itself suggestive. We make men pay for faults they have not committed. It seems, on the surface, extraordinary enough; unless, indeed, we are to conclude with Lord Bramwell that the whole thing is nonsensical, or with Sir Frederick Pollock that it is the entrance-fee payable for admis- sion to a dangerous trade. But the rules of law have usually some purpose behind them. Men like Holt and Blackburn are something more than whimsical innovators.42 The basis of our principles is to be found in the economic conditions of the time. Business has ceased to be mere matter of private concern. A man who embarks upon commercial enterprise is something more--even in the eyes of the law 4 4-- than a gay adventurer in search of a fortune. The results of his speculation are bound to affect the public; and the state, as the guardian of its inter- ests, is compelled to lay down conditions upon which he may pursue his profession. The emphasis does not lie, as Sir F. Pollock has suggested, in an ipso facto danger in business, but in the removal of certain zones of fact without the sphere of ordinary litigation. The basis of the rule, in fact, is public policy. One knows, of course, that "public policy" is a doctrine for which the judges have cherished no special affection. "I, for 40 Furlong v. South London Tramways Co. (1884) 4 J. P. 329; cf. Charleston v. London Tramways Co. (1888) 4 T. L. R. 629. 4: (1887) Cd. 285, p. 46. 4 2 Baty, op. cit. p. i5o. For a valuable general commentary on the ten- tencies of the modern law, cf. Charmont, Les Transformations du droit civil, chap. xvi. 43 I hope to trace in a later paper the early history of respondeat superior. 44 Cf. Mr. E. A. Adler's stimulating papers in 28 and 29 HARv. L. Rxv. III YALE LAW JOURNAL for whom he is answerable. The law makes him an inspector of police, a domestic magistrate, by rendering him liable for their imprudence." Even when we allow for the curiosities of the author's characteristic phraseology, it is yet clear that he has seized upon an important truth. If we allow the master to be careless of his servant's torts we lose hold upon the most valuable check in the conduct of social life. The real problem in vicarious liability, in fact, is not so much the rectitude of its basal principles, as the degree in which they are to be applied.5 7 Nor can we anticipate the manner in which that problem is to be solved. What must strike the observer in the study of the cases is that each is in itself a separate issue; the employer of a railway conductor whose habit it is to kiss the female passengers of pleasing appearance 8 must be dealt with differently from a bank of which the cashier fraudulently induces a customer to accept certain bills." "Each case," says Professor Frankfurter," "must be determined by the facts relevant to it . . . . we are dealing, in truth, not with a question of law but with the application of an undisputed formula to a constantly changing and growing variety of economic and social facts. Each case, therefore, calls for a new and distinct consideration, not only of the general facts of industry, but of -the specific facts in regard to the employment in question." The issue in vicarious liability is not different from that in regard to labor legislation. Just as our conception of the constitution- alty of statutes will depend upon the contemporary interpreta- tion of liberty,61 so the content of the liability enforced at any given moment upon a master for his servant's torts, must be shifted to fit the new facts it will continually encounter. It is not a very serious objection, in this age when incorporation has become but a formal informality, to urge that the growth of the 57 Cf. Prof. Frankfurter's remarks in regard to labor legislation, 29 HARv. L. REv. 367. 58 Croaker v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., 17 Am. Rep. 5o4. 59 Mackay v. Com. Bank of N. B. (1874) L. R. 5 P. C. 394. 60 Op. cit. p. 369. 61 Cf. Pound, Liberty of Contract, 18 YA.E LAW JouRNAL, 48o, and the argument of Prof. Frankfurter in Bunting v. Oregon (i916) reprinted by the National Consumers' League in The Case for the Shorter Work- day, pp. ix-xv. See also the opinion in Holden v. Hardy (z897) 169 U. S. 366, and the admirable remarks of M. Pic, op. cit. pp. 543-9. They are concepts exactly similar to these which I believe to lie at the base of vicarious liability. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY doctrine is a dangerous blow aimed at the stability of property.6 2 The doctrine will grow or contract according as the facts to which it is applied seem to warrant growth or contraction. It will have in view, not the history that is to be justified, but the end that is to be attained. It will let the future take care of itself by protecting it against the invasion of dogmas which grow painfully antique. It will strive, in fact, to make elastic that bed of Procrustes in which the client of law too often takes his rest. If, as Best, C. J., remarked,68 our law is to be "bot- tomed on plain, broad principles," it is well to see that they do not also, even though unconsciously, include its superstructure. For each age has to begin anew its legal thinking. IV The problem of scope of employment6V4 has become largely confused by the efforts of the courts to provide, somehow or other, a test of negligence on the part of the master. Thus, mas- ters are to be held liable for their servant's torts when the latter are acting "for the master's benefit"6' 5 when, as seems to be assumed, he is less careful than we may demand-or in such wise that a probable authority would from the nature of the case have been given 6 6 -a fiction of implied command being, so far as one can see, relied upon.6 7 It seems far easier to attempt a humanist application of public policy to the problems presented by the cases. The fiction of implied authority is so constantly breaking down, it so obviously results in patent anomalies as to be as dangerous as it is unsatisfactory. When we have defined "scope of employment" as consisting in acts incidental or natural to the servant's occupation, we are only on the threshold of our difficulties. For there has been the most widespread divergence of opinion as to what comes within the scope of 62 Baty, op. cit. 165. 68 Strother v. Barr (1828) 5 Bing. 136, 153. 64 Mr. Baty, in chaps. v-vii of his Vicarious Liability, has provided a per- fect mine of admirable comment on the cases, to which I am greatly indebted-though it is to be remembered that he enters always from the standpoint of a complete disagreement with the modern law. 05 Barwick v. Eng. Joint Stock Bank, ut supra; Dyer v. Munday, ut supra. .66Atty. Gen. v. Siddon & Binns (183o) i Tyr. 41. 67 For a vigorous dissent from this attitude, see the remarks of Brain- well, B., in Wier v. Bell (877) 3 Ex. D. 238. YALE LAW JOURNAL such acts, and no statistical measurement is at all possible. It is clear enough that if a driver employed by a jobmaster fails to keep watch over his customer's goods, that the master ought to pay; for he has held out the servant as capable in the per- formance of his duties-an obtainment of trust which carries with it a burden of responsibility.8 But when we explain the decision as based on negligence-after all, a fiction so far as the master is concerned-we have in reality advanced nowhere; for the negligence is that of the servant and the problem is the liability of the master. It surely seems better to emphasize the fact that public policy obviously requires a means of forcing masters to keep continual watch over the conduct of their ser- vants, and it is difficult to see how that end would otherwise be attained. Nor is it difficult to understand why a bank should be held answerable for the faults of its manager.6 9 From one point of view, and that the orthodox, it is, of course, possible to attribute the decision in Barwick to an "implied authority" on the part of the manager to act on behalf of his bank; but in a wider aspect it is clear, that where loss must occur, more good is likely to accrue from making a bank liable for a mistaken appointment, than from making a corn-dealer suffer for a not unnatural reliance on managerial dignity. The fiction is surely unsatisfactory; for it is hardly possible to suppose that the bank gave its servant authority to act dishonestly. It is surely better to explain the ground of the decision as an attempt to calculate the minimum social loss in a social situation where some loss is inevitable. So too, if a teacher renders her employers liable for an unwise treatment of her charges, 70 it is not because it is part of her duty to act in such fashion as gives rise to pen- alization, but because the fact of her liability is more likely to prevent the recurrence of the act, than the argument that she was acting for her own benefit and therefore outside her author- ity; for no child is, on the whole, likely to be deterred from poking a fire at command by the consideration that a court might declare the order outside the implied authority of the teacher. We do not therefore attempt the definition of the doctrine of implied authority for the simple reason that definition is impos- sible. We give up the doctrine. It is impossible, for instance, 6sAbraham v. Bullock (igoi) 86 L. T. 796. 9 Barwick v. Eng. Joint Stock Bank, ut supra. 70 Smith v. Martin [1911] 2 IC B. 775. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY get before the other omnibus." He was in no way disturbed by the company's instructions. He pointed out how easy it would be to issue secret orders countermanding them, and for the master thus both to benefit himself, and to keep on the right side of the law.8" That, surely, is a very necessary and valuable limitation; for were the law otherwise, there would be a posi- tive incentive to employers to use their humble servants as the screen for their wrongdoing. The social object of prevention can only be obtained by an effective and thoroughgoing penalization. The case is similar when trespass becomes extended to fraud. 5 The attempt to discredit the change on the ground that fraud implies a state of mind on the part of the defendant which does not in fact exist,( misses the significant point, that in no case of vicarious liability is moral blame attached to the master. Lia- bility for wrongful arrest is equally clear; for it is obvious that the action is entirely consistent with the scope of the ser- vant's employment unless fiction is to be invoked, 7 and unless we are to be without means for protecting the public from needless suffering. 8 It is clearly simply a social -interpretation of negligence. Because a servant does things in the stress of the moment which judicial reflection deems to have been actually unnecessary, there is no reason why the act should not bear its full consequences. One regrets the continual use of the fic- tion of "implied authority;"'' 9 but that is no reason why the necessity of the rule should not lead to the discussion of what other reasons may be given for its usage. To narrow liability by considering authority actually expressed is to endanger very 84 Ibid. at p. 539; cf. also McClung v. Dearborne (i89o) i34 Pa. 396. s5 As in Barwick. 86 See the remarks of Bramwell, L. J., in Weir v. Bell, ut supra: "I do not understand legal fraud; to my mind it has no more meaning than legal heat or legal cold, legal light or legal shade." But MacKay v. Com. Bank of N. B. (1874) 5 P. C. 394; Swift v. Winterbothan (1873) L. R. 8 Q. B. 244; Brit. Mutual Bank v. Charnwood Forest Ry. Co. (1887) 18 Q. B. D. 714 have established it firmly. See also Pollock, Torts (6th ed.) p. 92 n. d. 87 Moore v. Metropolitan Ry. Co. (1872) 8 Q. B. D. 36; Goff v. G. N. R. Co., ut supra. 88 I have discussed below the unfortunate limitation of this doctrine through the misapplication of ultra vires. 89 Mr. Baty in the fifth chapter of his book is able to exploit this weak- ness with great effect. YALE LAW JOURNAL seriously our control of social life.90 The employment of a ser- vant to perform certain functions must, on the whole, mean his employment to perform them as he deems best fitted, in his inter- pretation of his instructions, to serve his master's interest. 1 It is not much consolation to an injured plaintiff to be told that the defendant meant him no harm; for, as Brian, C. J., said more than four hundred years ago, the courts do not try the thoughts of men.2 We have here, as elsewhere, to follow the broad rule laid down by Shaw, C. J., in a famous case. "This rule," he said,93 "is obviously founded on the great principle of social duty, that every man in the management of his own affairs, whether by himself, or by his agents, shall so conduct them as not to injure another; and if he does not, and another thereby sustains damage, he shall answer for it." Nor has the applica- tion of the rule shown it to be without justification. And, after all, where the master most needs protection, he obtains it. He is not liable for the acts of his servant which are shown to be clearly unconnected with his service.9 N1 master, for example, can possibly warrant the moral impec- cability of his servants; and it is not difficult to see why Collins, M. R., should have held that when a servant has in view objects demonstrably and entirely his own, he should, in committing his tort, "have severed his connection with his master, and become a stranger." '9 5 The phrase is not perhaps of the happiest; it carries the crutch of fiction to sustain it. But everyone can see that it would not be right to hold a master liable for the chance temptations to which an usually reputed 00 In Lowe v. G. N. Ry. Co. (1893) 62 L. J. (Q. B.) 524. Matthew and Wright, J. J., really take this ground. It is the "must" of a railway por- ter's position that they consider. 91 Cf. Furlong v. South London Tram. Co. (1884) I Cab. and E. 36. 92 y. B. 17 E. IV. I. 93 See Farwell v. Boston and Worcester R. R. Co. (842) 4 Met. (Mass.) 49; and see the admirable remarks of Esher, M. K., in Dyer v. Munday,. ut supra at p. 746, where he points out the real meaning of the term authority. Snee v. Trice (18o2) 2 Bay (S. C.) 345 is an interesting ex- ample of how a special social situation will enable the master to escape responsibility. 94 McManus v. Crickett, ut supra; Croft v. Alison (1821) 4 B. & Aid. 59o; Hoar v. Maine Central R. R. Co. (188o) 70 Me. 65; Garvey v. Dung (1866) 30 How. Pr. (N. Y.) 315; Driscoll v. Scranton (1896) 165 Mass. 348; Pittsburgh F. W. & C. Ry. Co. v. Maurer (1871) 21 Oh. St. 421. 95 Cheshire v. Bailey [i9o5] I K. B. 237 at p. 241. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY honest employee might succumb-the more so as the temptation is rather the creation of the third party than his own. It may even be suggested that, in this respect, the master has been unduly protected; for when a train conductor hits a boy for jumping on his car, he is doing what he believes to be for his employer's good, and ought duly to make him liable. 98 To use a supposed sudden cessation of authority at the moment when the conductor's unlawful hand descends upon its victim's ear is to strain rationality to the breaking-point. Mr. Baty com- plains97 that a consideration of the servant's motive ought alone to be sufficient to save his master from liability. But the truth here is that everything must depend on the surrounding cir- cumstances of the cases with which the courts are called upon to deal. The reliance to be placed upon a coachman,9 8 for instance, is different in character from the reliance usually to be placed upon a bank manager,99 and it is reasonable that a distinction should be made between them; and what is true of a bank manager does not, as it seems, apply to a clerk in a com- pany.100 The rule must wait on the facts. What is here suggested is the simple thesis that only a social interpretation of the law will give us a satisfactory clue to the bewildering labyrinth that confronts us. If the judges continue to apply general principles founded on a dangerous and unsatis- fying fiction, only confusion of a lamentable kind can result. It is hardly possible, as the case now stands, to avoid a perplex- ing variety of opinion as to whether any given issue comes within the scope of "implied authority" or not. But it is possible to have sufficient confidence in the good sense of the courts to ask for a frankly communal application of the law. The promotion of social solidarity is an end it is peculiarly incumbent upon the law to promote, since its own strength, and even life, depends upon the growth of that sentiment. The fiction of implied authority is no more than a barbarous relic of individualistic goRadley v. L. C. C. (913) 29 T. L. R. 68o; cf. Central Ry. Co. v. Peacock (1888) 69 Md. 257; New Orleans & N. E. R. Co. v. .opes (18g) 142 U. S. 18. 97 Baty, op. cit. log. 98 As in Cheshire v. Bailey, ut supra. 99 Cont. Bank of N. B., ut supra. 100 Ruben v. Great Fingall Consolidated [igo6] A. C. 439. See also Houldsworth v. City of Glasgow Bank (18o) 5 A. C. 317 where the cases are collected. YALE LAW JOURNAL means of preventing a company from repudiating its servants' torts. 14 The reason is not that companies are well able to pay; for it is not the business of law to see that a debtor is solvent, but to provide a remedy for admitted wrong. The enforcement of such vicarious liability is more urgent for another reason. The dissolution of individual business enter- prise into the corporation system has tended to harden the con- ditions of commercial life. The impersonality of a company employing say five thousand men is perhaps inevitable; but in its methods of operation, it tends to be less careful of human life, more socially wasteful than the individual has been."05 But its consequences to society are equally momentous, and we dare not judge it differently.1 ' It is necessary, for instance, to see to it that we have pure food and unadulterated milk, and it can make no difference to us whether the offender against our requirements be individual or corporate.117 It is only by enforc- ing vicarious liability that we can hope to make effective those labor laws intended to promote the welfare of the workers ;118 for it is too frequently the corporation that evades the statute or attempts to discredit it."9 It is useless to argue that the responsibility rests upon the agent; for it is unfortunately too clear that men may act very differently in their institutional relations than in their ordinary mode of life.120 The London Dock strike of 1911 suggested that a man who in his domestic capacity will display all the most amiable sentiments of an 114 Cf. Gierke, Die Genossenschafts Theorie und die Deutsche Recht- sprechung, 801-3, and especially Loening, Die Haftung das Staates, p. 89. See also Pollock, op. cit. at p. I27. "25 For an interesting suggestion that it should therefore be judged dif- ferently, see M. D. Petre, Life of G. Tyrrell, II, 482. 116 Cf. C. D. Burns, The Morality of Nations, chaps. i and xi. 17 Pearks etc. v. Ward [1902] 2 K. B. I, and Chuter v. French [I91I] 2 K. B. 832; Stranahan Bros. Catering Co. v. Coit (i897) 55 Oh. St. 398- a very striking case. "28 Ruegg, Law of Employer and Workman in England, Lect. iv. '19 Anyone who studies the REPORTS OF THE CHIEF INSPECTOR OF FAC- TORIES IN ENGLAND, or the BULLETINS OF THE BUREAU OF LABOR, especially No. 142 of 1914, which deal with the enforcement of legislation, will be impressed by this state of affairs. For statistics as to the part played by the great corporations in the extension of the Fourteenth Amendment to labor legislation, see Collins, The Fourteenth Amendment and the States. 120 See an interesting little essay by Father Tyrrell on the corporate mind in his Through Scylla and Charybdis. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY average retired grocer will, when acting for a great dock com- pany, show himself immovable and unrelenting. But if he in- jure society in his activities it is surely clear that means must be at hand to render his principal responsible. That, at any rate, was the basis of the great judgment of Farwell, J., in the Taff Vale case. 2 1 No one supposes that trade union officials will commit torts unless there a-e trade unions for which to commit them. There may be special reasons for taking the trade unions outside the ordinary law, 22 but that is not to say that the acts would not otherwise be corporately tortious in char- acter. No one can deny, for example, the reality of those entities we call England and Germany. Not only do they act, but persons act on their behalf. It seems then socially necessary to make them bear the burden of a policy for which they are at bottom responsible. 23 Nor is the case at all different when the association we attempt to make corporately liable happens not to have chosen the path of incorporation. There seems no reason in the world why a technicality of registration should be allowed to differentiate between societies not in essence distinct. Yet as the law now stands active participation is essential to such liability."24 Here contract has betrayed us; for we regard the voluntary asso- ciation as no more than a chance collection of individuals who have agreed to perform certain acts; and they could not, of course, assent to the commission of illegalities." 25 "Because," says Mr. Baty,126 "William Sikes is a bad man, Lady Florence Belgrave is not to be taxed with abetting burglary if she sends him soup." But it is not the soup to which anyone-except Mr. Sikes and the philosophers of the London Charity Organization Society-will object; the problem is as to the establishment by Mr. Sikes of a fund which, though subscribed for legal pur- poses, is yet used in an illegal manner.1 27 N one really desires to attack the private fortunes of associated individuals; but it 121 [i9oi] A. C. 426. 22 See Mr. and Mrs. Webb's remarks in their introduction to the 1911 edition of their History of Trade Unionism. "2 See 13 JouR. OF PHIL. PsYcH. & Sc. METHODS, p. 85 14Brown v. Lewis (i896) 12 T. L. R. 455. "25 Cf. 29 HARv. L. REV. 417 ff. 126 Baty, op. cit. 52. 127 As for instance, the money subscribed to arm the different volunteer armies in Ireland recently. YALE LAW JOURNAL is eminently desirable that means should be had of getting at the funds they collectively subscribe, when legal--or illegal- results flow from their collective action. If a religious order which has not been incorporated chooses to have the services of an architect, the mere fact that its members are scattered, and had never contemplated the use made of their subscriptions by their representatives, ought not to hinder the architect from securing his rights by a representative action.12 If an unincor- porate aggregate acts as an individual body, it is surely good sense, it ought no less surely to be good law, to give it bodili- ness.129 That is why one can sympathize with decisions such as that in Ellis v. National Free Labor Association,130 or, conversely, with that in Brown v. Thompson and Co."' The same is true of the liability of clubs acting through their committees. No one imagines that the committee of a football club would, as a group of respectable and individual householders, erect a grand stand; and if that stand collapses, a technicality of registration ought not to defeat the ends of justice.13 2 An unincorporate individual is an unity for the fiscal purposes of the state;1'3 it is difficult to see why its social needs should be refused a similar protection. VI The basis of modem legislation on employer's liability and workmen's compensation is very similar in character. Both represent the typical modem reaction against mid-Victorian indi- vidualism. It is interesting to note the somewhat curious diver- gence in the attitude of lawyers and economists to these prob- lems. To the economist, the necessity of such legislation is abundantly evident. It is simply that the needs of the modem state require that the burden of loss of life, or personal injury in industry, shall be charged to the expenses of production, shall 118 Walker v. Sur [1914] 2 K. B. 930. 129 See, for instance, the amazing remarks of Lord Halsbury in Daimler Co. v. Continental Tyre Co. [I916] 2 A. C. 307 at p. 316. Maitland might never have written so far as this view of the nature of a corporation is concerned. 130 [1905] 7 Fac. 629. 131 [1912] S. C. 358. 132Brown v. Lewis, ut supra, and see also Wise v. Perpetual Trustee Co. [19o3] A. C. i39. 13348 & 49 Vict. c. 51; Curtis v. Old Monkland Conservative Association [igo6] A. C. 86. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY But it may be questioned whether the statutes were ever intended to throw any light upon the theory of torts. That at which they aim is simply, for social reasons, to secure the worker against the dangers of his employment in the belief that it is more advantageous for the burden to fall upon the employer. 147 It does not base that burden upon tort at all. On the contrary it withdraws it from the ordinary concepts of law by making it statutory. It places a statutory clause-the provision, in certain cases, for accident-as one of the conditions a master must observe if he wishes to engage in business. 14 The liability is made to arise not from any tort upon the part of the master, but upon the inherent nature of the modern economic situation. 1 4 It is not claimed that the master ought to pay because he gets the benefit of his servants' work,150 any more than under the old doctrine of common employment the judges would have argued that the workers ought to pay because they had the privilege of being employed. The fact is that eighty years have passed since Priestley v. Fowler, and our social ideas have not stood still in that interval. The state has been brought to ask itself how the safety of the workers and their families may be best assured, and it has re- turned its answer. It is unnecessary to attempt to bring the theory under any of the old maxims of vicarious liability.'5 ' The dogma underlying it may be new or it may be old; we need not be greatly concerned either at its novelty or its antiquity. The question to which we have to reply is a very different one. The test of our rule is whether it affords the protection that is intended. Much of the real problem is obscured 'by discussion of a supposititious case of an individual employer and a free and independent workman-without real existence in the indus- trial world we know-and then asking, if the former is to be responsible for accidents where no fault is anywhere to be dis- covered, and if the logic of the law of torts is thereby to be destroyed. We cannot sacrifice social necessity to the logic of 147 For more drastically adverse criticism of the principle see Mignault in 44 Am. L. REv. 719; Hirschfeld in 13 JouR. Soc. Com. LEG. ri9; and seemingly, Prof. Dicey in Law and Public Opinion, pp. 281-2; cf. Holmes, J., in 207 U. S. 463, 541. 148 Cf. Pound, 25 INT. JouR. oF ETHIcs, p. I. 149 Just as special liabilities are attached to carriers, etc. 150 As Prof. Mechem seems to think, op. cit. 227, 241-2. 1- As Judge Smith is anxious to compel us to do. 27 -ARv. L. REv. 254. YALE LAW JOURNAL the law of torts. The crux of this problem is the economic need of preventing the cheapening of human life,'1 52 and to that end our law must shape itself. We need not fear very greatly that the imposition of such liability on building contractors, for ex- ample, will force them out of business ;153 for the cost of labor has a convenient habit of expressing itself in terms of price. Nor can we rest content with the suggestion of a distinguished jurist 54 that it is expedient to let accidental loss lie where it falls. That may be an admirable maxim in the case of a stricken millionaire; but it is of too hard consequence where the sufferer has needy dependents. It seems, on the whole, a better policy to set our faces firmly forward, and shape the character of our law by the ends it has to serve. In such an aspect, if we admit that the state has the right, on grounds of public policy, to condition the industrial process, it becomes apparent that the basis of the vicarious lia- bility is not tortious at all; nor, since it is withdrawn from the area of agreement, is it contractual. It is simply a statutory protection the state chooses to offer its workers. Whether, as such, it so discriminates against the employing class, as to come within the scope of measures contemplated by the Fourteenth Amendment, is another and a very different question. If we believe that it is not an infringement of libery to read its mean- ing in its social context, 55 we shall perhaps be in no doubt as to the rightness of a negative response. We shall then argue that no other possibility in reality exists at the present time. We have to minimize the loss consequent upon the needs of life. The principles of law must be subordinate to that effort. VII There seems no valid a priori reason why the operation of our principles should cease at that border where tort becomes crime. Actus non facit reum nisi menw rea may be admirable in a state of nature; but it will not fit the facts of a complex social struc- ture. So that we need fear no difficulties at the outset. The case is of course obvious where the crime is performed upon 152 Cf. Hutchins & Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, 254 f. 253 Quinn v. Crimmings (1898) 71 Mass. 255, 258. 1'5 Holmes, The Common Law, 94 if. 5t 3 Green, Coll. Works, 379. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY specific authority, 5 or is the natural and inevitable consequence of the servant's business. 5 7 The real problems, as in the case of civil liability, arise where the doctrine of implied authority begins to pale its ineffectual fire before the difficulties it has to confront. Everything, it is clear, depends upon the nature of the crime. We shall not easily, for instance, charge a corporation with murder; but if a company's servants, acting for their master's benefit, send a gatling gun mounted upon an armored train through a village at night, 58 it is necessary to enforce adequate penalties against the source of such a crime. Again, we have statutes regulating the sale of liquor which are notoriously diffiL cult to enforce. It is found essential, in these cases, to insist on the full responsibility of the licensee if the law is to be of any avail." 9 Lord Alverstone, indeed, has endeavored to formu- late certain canons by which the breach of law may be tested;'10 but they can hardly be said to have much practical worth. The point at issue in this class of crime is simply and surely the enforcement of the law, and it may generally be suggested that the necessities of the case do not admit of our enquiring too closely into the delicate niceties of the situation.' 6 Society has not usually suffered from a reasonable vigilance towards saloon keepers. And the same rule holds good when we pass the narrow line from drink to cards.' 82 We must have our food protected; and that, irrespective of the vendor's motive. It is here not merely a question of whether knowledge on the master's part may be assumed,8 3 or whether the provision of food is so dangerous an occupation as to require special diligence,8 4 but simply that the consequences of the alter- native to a stern treatment are too serious to be admissible. 158 U. S. v. Nunnemacher (1876) 7 Biss. iii. ' 5 7 As in the case of a bookseller's assistant dealing with a libellous publication. Wilson zr Rankin (1865) 6 B. & S. 208, per Cockburn, C. J. 258 Lippmann, Drift and Mastery, p. 8o. 15 State v. Fagan (1909) 74 At. (Del.) 693. 180 Emory v. Nolloth [19o3] 2 K. B. 264. 161 Cf. however, Com. v. Riley (i9o7) 196 Mass. 6o. 182 Crabtree v. cole (1879) 43 J. P. 779; Bond v. Evans (1888) 23 Q. B. D. 249. The remarks of Stephen, J., on the strange decision in Newman v. Jones (1886) 17 Q. B. D. 132 are particularly noteworthy. 183 Nelson v. Parkhill (1892) 20 Sc. Sess. Cas. 4th Series, p. 24; Brown v. Foot (1892) 66 L. T. N. S. 649. 16 4 R. v. Dixon (814) 3 M. & S. II. YALE LAW JOURNAL hold as we possess over the action of groups in the affairs of social life-the more particularly in an age predominantly asso- ciational in character.""' It is, for the most part, a commercial problem consequent upon the dissolution of individual industrial action.'"" Its solution in the future must depend upon our man- ner of interpreting the business function.' 8' VIII What has been here attempted is, in fact, a part of the socio- logical analysis of law. We do not sufficiently realize how greatly our legal ideas have been affected by their peculiar rela- tion to the history of landed property. Primitive jurisprudence concerns itself, for the most part, with the protection of indi- vidual rights. Certain men are blameworthy; they have invaded the property of other men. It is then necessary to obtain pro- tection against them. That ancient but tenacious individualism is in truth the coronation of anarchy; and the time comes when a spirit of community supersedes it. But either because that notion is prematurely born, or else because it is inadequately translated into terms of actual life, it results in the cramping of single-handed effort. It passes away; and the consequence is the beatification of laissez-faire. But it becomes increasingly evident that society cannot be governed on the principles of com- mercial nihilism. To assume that freedom and equality consist in unlimited competition is simply to travesty the facts. We come once more to an age of collective endeavor. We begin the re-interpretation of law in the terms of our collective needs. Novelty for our principles, we may not in some sort deny; though, in truth, if it is by history that we are to be judged a plethora of antiquarianism might not be wanting'8 4 But it is on different ground that we take our stand. It is our business to set law to the rhythm of modern life. It is the harmonization 181 This is especially true of the United States. Cf. De Tocqueville's remarks in 2 Democ. in America, 97 ff. (trans. Reeve, 1889) which are even more accurate at the present time. 182 Perhaps also of great ecclesiastical corporations, cf. Brown v. Mon- treal (1874) 6 P. C. 157. Something of the same issue is involved in First Church of Christ Scientist, Applic. of (1897) 6 Pa. Dist. Ct. 745, and the similar application in 205 Pa. 543. 183 Cf. Mr. Justice Brandeis in his Business a Profession, passim. 184 Cf. the articles of Dean Wigmore cited above. THE BASIS OF VICARIOUS LIABILITY 135 of warring interests with which we are concerned. How to evolve from a seeming conflict the social gain it is the endeavor of law to promote-this is the problem by which we are con- fronted. We would base our legal decisions not on the facts of yesterday, but on the possibilities of to-morrow. We would seek the welfare of society in the principles we enunciate. We have been told on the highest authority that no other matter is entitled to be weighed.185 HAROLD J. LASKI. Harvard University. 185 Holmes, J., in 8 H~Av. L. REv. 9.