Respondeat Superior: Employer Employee Relationship (Essay Sample)

NAME:
INSTITUTION:
COURSE:
RESPONDEAT SUPERIOR
Introduction
Respondeat superior refers to the doctrine that circumstances that an employer is responsible for an employee. More specifically, it states that a master is liable for wrongdoings of his servants, committed in the course of their service. It is not exculpatory and does not eradicate normal negligence doctrine; hence the master still remains liable for any kind of negligence of its own, as long as it can be proved without the aid of a respondeat superior, for example negligent supervision (Hershey, 1962). In case of the master suffering any damages as a result of the servants torts, he is entitled to indemnification from the servant, thus he is entitled to sue the servant for repayment, if he had paid for the helps damages under respondeat superior. This is strictly under the standard agency law. The employer is referred to as the principal when someone is engaging for him. The theory behind this doctrine is that the principal controls the behavior of the agent who is the person working under him and must assume some responsibility for that individual’s actions. However, the employers have a substantial amount of legal support and the appellate Divisions consist of a well-defined body of case law, which clears employers of liability for the actions of their employees that are not within the scope of their duties, thus unanticipated.
Employer-Employee Relationship
An employee is an agent for the employer; hence he is authorized to act on behalf of the employer and is entitled partially with his or her employers business. The employer controls the place, time and mode of doing work, thus he can be held responsible for the injuries caused by the employee in the course of his work.
However, a court may consider the workers job description or responsibilities allotted, the place, time, and purpose of the employee act, whether an occurrence such as death could rationally have been expected and the magnitude to which the employee’s action conformed to what she was hired to do.
Case Analysis
According to the legal concept of Respondeat Superior’s Doctrine, it is determined to occur when the employee is said to have committed a criminal offence in terms of law breaking of the institution’s laws within the scope of employment. The employer is said to be held accountable even though it is not his fault. In regard to the surgeon, he is considered to be responsible because of the fact that it was under his supervision that the nurse made a mistake which eventually resulted in the death of the patient, who otherwise would have survived. Doctors should work with this doctrine in mind and should also be keen in understanding the consequences of hiring nurses in a day to day basis (Myers, 1949).
When is an Employee Considered to be on the Job?
It is not appropriate to state that an employee is acting outside the scope of employment just because she is she engages in something that she is not required to do. Also, an employer cannot renounce liability just by showing that the employee had been directed not to do what she d...