A car parking company offers a service where a car owner can meet an employee at the airport who will collect the keys and drive the car to a secure carpark for the duration of the owner's trip. However, on the way to the secure car park, the employee stops at a nearby local supermarket to get lunch. While parking illegally in a prohibited area at the supermarket, the employee negligently damages the vehicle.
Which of the following statements best describes the car parking company's liability for the actions of its employees?
A car parking company offers a service where a car owner can meet an employee at the airport who will collect the keys and drive the car to a secure carpark for the duration of the owner's trip. However, on the way to the secure car park, the employee stops at a nearby local supermarket to get lunch. While parking illegally in a prohibited area at the supermarket, the employee negligently damages the vehicle.
Which of the following statements best describes the car parking company's liability for the actions of its employees?
The car parking company is vicariously liable for the actions of its negligent employee because the negligence occurred during the course of his employment.
(D) The car parking company can be held responsible for the actions of its employees, which is known as vicarious liability. For an employer to be held vicariously liable, the employee's wrongdoing must occur during employment.
The question here is whether the employee's decision to deviate from the authorised route in order to go to the supermarket took him outside the course of his employment. If the employee's deviation is significant enough in terms of time or distance, it may indicate that the employee has started on a separate and independent journey for personal reasons, which would be outside the course of employment. But, if the deviation is minor and does not involve a new and separate journey, it is unlikely to take the employee outside the course of employment. Based on the facts, the deviation in this case seems to be minor and unlikely to take the employee outside the course of employment.
Therefore, option (C) is not correct.
Option (A) is incorrect because an employer is vicariously liable for the actions of an employee that occur during employment, as explained above.
Option (B) is also incorrect. An employer can be held vicariously liable for the criminal actions of employees if there is a close connection between the employee's actions and their employment.
Option (E) is not correct either because an employer can only be held vicariously liable for an employee's wrongdoing if it occurred during employment, as discussed earlier. While the employer may be directly responsible for any damage to the car due to a breach of a contractual duty to the car owner, that is not considered vicarious liability.