The court might decide that Freddy (the plaintiff) was owed a duty of care by Elvis (the defendant) if they find that what happened to Freddy was in the realm of reasonable forseeability - any harm that could be caused to a \'neighbour\' by Elvis\' actions that he could reasonably have expected to happen. The \'neighbour principle\' was established in the case of Donoghue v. Stevenson (1932). Donoghue was bought a ginger beer by her friend from an ice-cream parlour. She discovered a partially decomposed snail inside the opaque bottle. She claimed that she suffered from gastro-enteritis and nervous shock as a result, and sued the manufacturer. She could not sue for breach of contract (the contract being that the manufacturer would provide the consumer with products that would not harm her) because her friend had purchased it for her, so she sued for negligence. Lord Atkinson, who was the judge at the trial, said the case hinged o

The good points of employers being liable in most cases for the torts of their employees are that the employer is usually a lot more able to pay out large amounts of compensation than the employee. It probably won\'t hurt the company to pay the compensation as much as it would hurt the employee. And the company will probably have insurance to cover just such an eventuality, meaning that an insurance group will pay the compensation. They, in turn, will probably raise their premiums, meaning that the burden of the debt is spread much more thinly and widely. Of course, this is based on the assumption that the plaintiff doesn\'t take both the employer and employee to court - in which case, this isn\'t really an advantage. Secondly, the threat of such an action might be the impetus that some companies need to raise their standards of training, supervision and safety to adequate levels. Finally, some people would say that the employee is merely an extension of the employer, given that s/he must have approved of the subordinate when s/he was first employed, so the torts are really those of the employer, committed indirectly. The bad points of this law are that there is a much greater capacity for fraud to occur, with employees intentionally harming a collaborator to get employers to compensate them, then splitting the money. This is just one way that this law could be manipulated for the benefit of either the employer or employee. If the employer wanted to sack an employee but had no good reason, then they could stage an \'accident\' which pointed to the negligence of the employee, giving them an excuse to fire them and avoid an unfair dismissal action. The action would obviously be dropped once the offending employee was removed. Secondly, although the employee is supposedly an extension of the employer, can the employer really be held responsible for the actions of another person with free will? What if the employee started well in his/her duties, but quickly became lax in performing their job, and then committing a tort. Admittedly, they should really have been supervised better, but if the

Some topics in this essay:
Ltd Elvis, Harlow UDC, Ipsa Loquitur, Lord Atkinson, , Liability Act, Donoghue Stevenson, Katherine Docks, duty care, ipsa loquitur, res ipsa, res ipsa loquitur, Res Ipsa, vicarious liability, negligence defined principle, contributorily negligent, reasonable explanation, negligence defined, relates negligence, occupiers liability, relates negligence defined, owed duty care, defined principle, Occupiers Liability, occupiers liability act,