2 Causes of Action Leading to Liability

摘要

There are two causes of action that can be pled in order to find liability against a fleet management or trucking company. 1. Vicarious liability. The first and, typically, easiest way to hold a company liable is under a theory of vicarious liability or, as we lawyers call it, "respondeat superior," for all of the Latin-speaking population. In order to prove vicarious liability, a plaintiff/claimant need only show that the driver of the vehicle was driving on behalf of or employed by the fleet manager or company. The test is whether they were in the course and scope of their employment. If the driver is an employee, and he or she is actually working at the time of the accident (delivering something, etc.), the test is easily met. The more difficult questions can be if the person is an independent contractor vs. employee or whether the employee is driving a company vehicle but doing a personal errand or driving to or from work and not yet at work. The answer for an independent contractor is the amount or degree of control a company has over that driver, such as hiring, training, payment, reporting, taxes, fuel, hours of work, reporting to a boss, etc. That is evidence of control, and if one of those areas was/ is the cause of the accident, vicarious liability will be found.