Employer's Liability For Violent Acts Of Employees

It is a long-established principle that an employer will not be vicariously liable for the act of an employee unless the act was committed in the course of employment. However, the meaning of 'in the course of employment' has been the subject of much debate.

In the joined cases of Weddall v Barchester Healthcare Limited and Wallbank v Wallbank Fox Designs Limited, the Court of Appeal considered whether two employees acted in the course of their employment when, in each case, they inflicted severe violence on a colleague.

In the first case, Mr Weddall telephoned Mr Marsh at home to ask if he would like to fill in a shift at a care home for someone who had called in sick. Mr Marsh was drunk at the time and did not react well to the request, even though he was free to refuse to do the shift. He rode on his bicycle to the care home, saw Mr Weddall in the garden and subjected him to a violent physical attack. In the second case, Mr Wallbank asked a more junior colleague, Mr Brown, to assist him in loading furniture onto a belt. Mr Brown reacted to this request by throwing Mr Wallbank onto a table 12 feet away, as a result of which he suffered a fractured vertebra. A County Court judge had found that neither employee was acting in the course of employment, and that accordingly the employer was not vicariously liable for these assaults.

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