O’REGAN J “The school was responsible for the care and welfare of the boys. It entrusted that responsibility to the warden. He was employed to discharge the school’s responsibility to the boys. For this purpose the school entrusted them to his care. He did not merely take advantage of the opportunity which employment at a residential school gave him. He abused the special position in which the school had placed him to enable it to discharge its own responsibilities, with the result that the assaults were committed by the very employee to whom the school had entrusted the care of the boys. . . . I would hold the school liable.”46 [37] In each of their speeches, the Law Lords held therefore that although the conduct of the warden had been clearly a gross deviation, the conduct itself was sufficiently closely related to the obligations borne by the employer in respect of the children who were abused to render the employer liable. [38] Similar issues have arisen in Canada and were considered by the Supreme Court in two judgments handed down on the same day, Bazley v Curry47 and Jacobi v Griffiths.48 Both cases concerned the vicarious liability of employers for the sexual assaults of their employees on children within their care. In a comprehensive and careful review not only of the existing legal principles, but also of the policy that underlies the doctrine of vicarious liability, McLachlin J in Bazley’s case concluded gave the servant the opportunity to do what he did without more, there will be no vicarious liability, hence the use by Salmond and in the Scottish and some other authorities of the word ‘connection’ to indicate something which is not a casual coincidence but has the requisite relationship to the employment of the tortfeasor (servant) by his employer”. (At para 59.) 46 Id at para 82. 47 Above n 22. 48 Above n 22. 27

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