Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 08:58:19 -0400

From: Jason Neyers

Subject: Vicarious Liability Query

Colleagues:

Thank you for all your suggestions, by the way. I post this on behalf of Harold Luntz:

Also perhaps not quite what you're after, but possibly close, is Soblusky v Egan (1960) 103 CLR 215, where according to the statement of the facts:

On the occasion of the accident ... the vehicle ... was being driven to a lodge meeting at Gayndah some distance from Maryborough where Soblusky lived. Soblusky had arranged that Egan, Lewis and another, all members of the lodge, should be driven to the meeting in the vehicle and that Lewis should drive as he disliked driving long distances. Soblusky sat alongside Lewis during the journey but the evidence left it uncertain as to whether he was asleep when the accident occurred.

Soblusky was held vicariously liable for the driver's negligence. John Keeler, 'Driving Agents: To Vicarious Liability for (Some) Family and Friendly Assistance?' (2000) 8 TLJ 41 at 84, has described the decision as "perverse":

the effect of the decision [being] to make the owner of a vehicle that was still registered and insured in the name of another person partly liable for the injuries caused to a passenger and thereby relieve the compulsory third party insurer of a measure of liability for them.

Harold Luntz.

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