Business Law

Case Study

(I)

In order to advise Samantha and Syd whether they can recover compensation from the damages and loss, it is necessary to kind out UCC potential legal responsibility and to find out whether they were in breach of them. What is very clear in this case study is the fact that there has been an incident where by a spillage of yellow paint, from a UCC truck driver, this has disrupted a delicatessen business run by Syd and the non usage of Samantha’s car.

This case study could be argued that UCC legal responsibility is it being vicarious liability due to the negligence of its employee, Alan. Vicarious Liability according to (Keenan & Riches, 2007) “An employer is liable for damage caused to another person by his employee, while the employee was carrying out his work”. Furthermore the negligence could be attributed to “A person who totally disregards the safety of others but does not injure them is not guilty of negligence, although they may be morally reprehensive” According to (Cooke, 2007).

It could be argued that UCC is vicarious liable and should pay out compensation to Samantha and Syd, reason being that this incident happened while Alan was under the act of employment, he was in a UCC hired van he had been assigned a task from UCC and he had finished his morning task so he is going on lunch, so therefore since the employer and employee are “associated parties” in the business the employer bears the brunt of any damages or act of negligence an employee those[Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd v Morts Dock and Engineering Co Ltd (The Wagon Mound) 1961]. So therefore in conjunction to this UCC are liable and should therefore pay for the damages suffered to Samantha’s car and the loss of profit to Syd and his delicatessen business.

However there is also an argument that UCC is not vicariously liable for the damages suffered to Samantha and Syd, It could be said that the fact that Alan has finished his morning session and so is therefore on his way to...