I was just about to post the same thing. LOL.

 

I'm not sure I entirely understand your point, but if you're wondering why employers have to pay for the misconduct of their negligent employees, there is a sound policy reason for it. Companies hire employees to further the interests of the company. We "allow" principals to make money through the work performed by their agents. It follows, then, that they should also bear the costs of their agents' performance of duties. If that were not the case, the companies would gain an unfair competitive advantage by cutting corners. Let's say you own a pizza restaurant. You hire delivery drivers with a clean driving record and no criminal history. You pay them $15 an hour. I start a pizza restaurant and only hire convicted sex offenders who have had their DLs suspended. I can get away with paying them $10 an hour. I will be able to undercut you on an important cost center. But in doing so, I put the public at risk. If nothing ever goes wrong (hence the phrase, no harm, no foul), and my convicted sex offender driver with no DL turns out to be a wise investment, then I will make more profit than you do, all things being equal. Now, let's say that my guy rapes a customer or kills someone in a collision while making a delivery. If we lived in a world where I would not have to pay for my worker's negligence--a world where I only took the good but disclaimed the bad that stems from his conduct--then this would serve to support bad business practices at the expense of good business practices, and the trend would be toward more harm being done overall.

A couple other points. First, in the story this thread is about, the employer is not merely financially responsible for the negligent employee's misconduct, the employe was negligent themselves. They have both direct liability and vicarious liability (assuming all the aforementioned shenanigans work out the way the lawyer hopes). The news generally suck at explaining the law, so it's hard to suss out such details. In other words, I think you may be mistaken, but it's perfectly understandable since you were given incomplete info. Second, vicarious liability is not a new-fangled invention. It was appropriated from Roman law, and goes back at least 2,000 years, but probably well into the B.C.s. Third, it's important to note that employers are not responsible for every action committed by an employee, only those central to the employee's performance of job duties that are reasonably foreseeable. If an employee engages in what we call a "frolic or detour," then the employer's liability can be severed. Fourth, I can see why you'd think that employees can't be sued in any context, but that's not actually accurate. Employees usually are sued in these cases. Also, as a practical matter, the employer purchases insurance to shield employees from liability. Fifth, your doctor analogy seems to miss to be off target a bit. Doctors are specialists who are held to a higher standard than a typical entry-level employee or unskilled worker. This is reflected in their remuneration. So, right out of the gate, their potential exposure for liability is higher than that of most people. Further, doctors absolutely can enjoy the same privilege of having their employer bear financial responsibility for their misconduct (under the circumstances described above), but many (most?) choose instead to hang up their own shingle. Again, their earnings potential reflects that choice. A good buddy of mine is an employee doctor for a local hospital. He is paid a salary and doesn't make that much. Another buddy is an ortho who works AT a hospital but is his own independent company, for all practical purposes. He makes considerably more money but incurs considerably more risk.

 

I appreciate you taking the time to make the post. Personally I do not agree with the entire concept of vicarious responsibility. But I also am not saying that employers do not bear personal responsibility in certain cases. They would certainly be responsible for setting up a safe work environment and should accept plenty of legal liability in a wide variety of context.

I am not sure your analogy of the pizza delivery driver is a good one, given the person would be intentionally going far beyond the nature of the job at hand. If employers could face liability for hiring criminals, then we may as well leave the criminals in jail, we would be out of our mind to hire them if there is any alternative at hand. And this is why I think your example is just a little bit fantastic. It is certainly not in the self interest of the pizza place to 'cut corners' if they remotely suspected such a risk because the cost in reputation would just put him out of business. There are plenty of unavoidable consequences in reality to peoples irrational choices, well before the law gets involved, again not saying that this is always a bad thing.

I am sure even under the framework of vicarious law there are particular laws that I would think are very good to have; I am just averse to the concept for various epistemological and ethical reasons as I consider it anti-conceptual in nature, meaning that it in essence destroys what I hold to be a valid concept of individual responsibility. Likely the particular laws I would agree with, could easily be subsumed under the basis of simply holding individuals accountable for their actions which directly harm others. This may not always be of material consequence but certainly we have a long history of business men and employers being the victims of societal witch hunts on account of their 'profit motive' which for many people renders them guilty by default. EG: Various anti-trust laws on the books for example.