As a phrase that is linked to a theory, the 2 words respondent superior could dictate the outcome for a personal injury case. Those words indicate that an employer can be held responsible for an employee’s conduct.

The employee had to have been acting in accordance with the employer’s directive.

In other words, whatever the nature of the employee’s conduct, if it had demonstrated an effort to comply with an employer’s wishes, then the same employer could be held responsible for any accidents that might result from the employee’s performance of his or her chosen actions.

On the other hand, if an employee had chosen to carry out some type of test, one that the employer had not requested, and someone got injured during that same test, the tester (employee) would be the only one that could be blamed for any harm that might be inflicted on others.

Employees must be “on the clock” at the time of the accident, in order for their employers to become affected by the respondent superior theory.

The phrase “on the clock” makes reference to the way that some workers need to punch in each workday. In that way their employers can know exactly what time each of them arrived at the worksite, and when each of them left that same location.

That provision in the theory, the one concerning employers’ accountability, eliminates the chances for using such a theory-linked phrase, if an employee were involved in an accident on the way to work, or while returning home from work.

The employee’s conduct must match with the scope of his or her job responsibilities.

Personal Injury Lawyer Mississauga knows that provision would seem to copy the one mentioned earlier, where the employer’s actions had to have made in response to an employer’s directive. This additional provision keeps employees from claiming falsely that an employer had requested one of their rather foolhardy actions.

That provision forces employees to be honest, and it pushes employers to care about the safety of their workers. For instance, if some supervisor had asked a worker to carry glassware from one room to the next, that request could be viewed as threat to the same worker’s safety. He or she might trip and fall, causing the glassware to break into many small pieces.

A smart employer might have invited submission of safety-focused complaints. That would have provided the glass-carrying worker with a chance to request a cart. The arrival of such a cart would keep the employer from falling victim to the respondent superior theory.

If any glassware had broken in the absence of a cart, and had caused an injury, the employer would have been performing functions that fell within the assigned duties.