Law of Agency in UK Law

Similarly, when, as I shall indicate, it is important that one should determine the course of employment of the servant, the law of agency may have some marginal relevance But basically, as I understand It, the employer is made vicariously liable for the tort of his employee not because theplaintiff is an invitee, nor because of the authority possessed by the servant, but because It is a case in which the employer, having put matters into motion, should be liable if the motion that he has originated leads to damage to another.

Electoral law has always drawn the concept of agency very widely. In the days when those standing for election (particularly to Parliament) would be members of the upper classes, it was not supposed that they would do their own electioneering. It was taken for granted that others would carry out the hard work of persuading voters. In an era before political parties were professionally organised, the candidate would collect a body of dedicated supporters who would campaign on his behalf.

The agent owes a duty of undivided loyalty to the principal, unless the latter has given his informed consent to some less demanding standard of duty. The principal is thus entitled to the entire benefit of the agent's acts in the course of his agency. The agent's duty is accordingly to deliver up to his principal the benefit which he has obtained, and not simply to pay compensation for having obtained it in excess of his authority.

For I regard it as clear that in order to fix vicarious liability upon the owner of a car in such a case as the present, it must be shown that the driver was using it for the owner's purposes, under delegation of a task or duty. The owner ought to pay, it says, because he has authorised the act, or requested it, or because the actor is carrying out a task or duty delegated, or because he is in control of the actor's conduct.

The fundamental point made by the Court of Appeal in this case and the Court of Final Appeal in Moulin is that, while the basic rules of attribution may apply regardless of the nature of the claim or the parties involved, the breach of duty exception does not. It reflects the fact that the rules of attribution are derived from the law of agency, whereas the fraud exception, like the illegality defence which it qualifies, is a rule of public policy.

In Meridian Global Funds Management Asia Ltd v Securities Commission [1995] 2 AC 500, Lord Hoffmann (at p 506) pointed out that it is a necessary part of corporate personality that there should be rules by which acts are attributed to the company. First, he identified the "primary rules of attribution" from company law, which is the first of the direct forms of liability which we describe above.

One such situation is where the agent of one of the parties is interposed between them. In that situation, the agent is the proxy of his principal, by virtue of the law of agency. There are also situations where the defendant receives property from a third party into which the claimant can trace an interest. Since the property is, in law, the equivalent of the claimant's property, the defendant is therefore treated as if he had received the claimant's property.