Employee liability

OK the case of Lister v Romford Ice and Cold Storage makes me angry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lister_v_Romford_Ice_and_Cold_Storage_Co_Ltd

It makes employees liable to employers for carelessness. Many would expect the employer to take that risk, and particularly in cases such as this (a vehicle accident) the employer's insurer. 

This is important - when driving for work, you are uninsured. Your employer is insured. Their insurer can (and has, as in the Lister case) come back at you.

While in other situations employers have something called "vicarious liability", meaning normally the employer has deeper pockets and would be the one sued, and outside actual malice few employers would sue their staff (in the Lister case the employer was theoretically suing but in reality it was their insurer), always bear in mind the risk of say a liquidator, administrator, bankruptcy trustee or official receiver putting the risk on you when they cancel the insurance. This has also happened.

https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/214.html

This is a useful and scary CIC warning on the issue of employee liability (mostly how vicarious liability can fail).

https://www.cic.org.uk/admin/resources/personal-liability-of-employees.pdf

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