O’REGAN J
instructed to deliver, driven to attend to some personal matters of his own during
which time he consumed enough beer to render him unable to drive the vehicle safely.
On his way back to his employer’s garage, he negligently collided with and killed the
father of two minor children. The case concerned a dependant’s claim for damages
and the Court, by a majority, held the employer to be vicariously liable.
[27]
In his judgment holding the employer liable, Watermeyer CJ captured the test
for vicarious liability in deviation cases as follows ─
“If an unfaithful servant, instead of devoting his time to his master’s service, follows
a pursuit of his own, a variety of situations may arise having different legal
consequences.
(a) If he abandons his master’s work entirely in order to devote his time to
his own affairs then his master may or may not, according to the circumstances, be
liable for harm which he causes to third parties. If the servant’s abandonment of his
master’s work amounts to mismanagement of it or negligence in its performance and
is, in itself, the cause of harm to third parties, then the master will naturally be legally
responsible for that harm; there are several English cases which illustrate this
situation and I shall presently refer to some of them. If, on the other hand, the harm
to a third party is not caused by the servant’s abandonment of his master’s work but
by his activities in his own affairs, unconnected with those of his master, then the
master will not be responsible.
(b) If he does not abandon his master’s work entirely but continues partially
to do it and at the same time to devote his attention to his own affairs, then the master
is legally responsible for harm caused to a third party which may fairly, in a
substantial degree, be attributed to an improper execution by the servant of his
master’s work, and not entirely to an improper management by the servant of his own
affairs.”32
In a later passage in the judgment, Watermeyer CJ continued as follows ─
32
Id at 742.
20
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