Vicarious liability (Commercial) meaning

J D Wetherspoon Plc v Burger and another company [2025] EWHC 1259 (KB) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling matters greatly to anyone who hires (or is perceived to have hired) a third party to act on their behalf. Its effect is felt widely across the hospitality industry, notably where security provision is concerned. Yet it is just as significant in any sphere that retains contractors to deliver services for another party. The hazard is being saddled with liability for what a third party does while performing a specialist task. If that boundary were not maintained, the very notion of a truly independent contractor would be undermined and the commercial allocation of risk diluted. Too often, commercial clients are left potentially liable when the contractor fails to answer a claim or engage with it. That can become a very costly result, and this decision provides support in defending such claims. What was the background? On 5 August 2018 Mr Burger was restrained...

In this issue: Brexit headlines Constitutional and administrative law Judicial review Equality and human rights Public procurement Public sector contracts Information law New and updated content Daily and weekly news alerts Free webinars Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Brexit headlines UK government and European Commission publish update on Windsor Framework delivery. Following a meeting of the Specialised Committee on implementation, both parties released a joint statement. Notable steps include cutting sanitary and phytosanitary identity checks from 10% to 8% for the Northern Ireland Retail Movement Scheme, advancing EU access to UK customs IT systems, and confirming full application of veterinary medicines rules from 1 January 2026. See: LNB News 04/12/2025 20. Weekly round-up of EU–UK TCA Specialised Committees’ publications—9 December 2025. This summary covers documents issued by Specialised Committees created under the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement for 3–8 December 2025. See: LNB News 09/12/2025 10. Constitutional...

ARCHIVED: This archived Practice Note sets out key dispute resolution (DR) appeals or notable appellate court rulings in the sphere of general civil litigation in England and Wales from 2023 to the present, and highlights significant pending appeal matters (to support horizon scanning) alongside reported decisions handed down by the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, Competition Appeal Tribunal, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (the Privy Council), Court of Justice of the European Union (Court of Justice) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Links are provided to each judgment and any bespoke News Analysis to aid comprehension of the principles addressed in the decisions and the impact of those rulings. This Practice Note comprises two elements designed to help dispute resolution practitioners stay current with developments in case law that affect their practice area, or that bear upon civil litigation procedure more generally: selected forthcoming appeals to the Supreme Court are listed below; see Dispute resolution: key appeal cases—2023—Key forthcoming appeals to the Supreme...

This Practice Note considers the legal and practical issues when entering into a subcontract or authorising subcontracting: What is subcontracting? When may subcontracting be allowed? The legal consequences of subcontracting Subcontractor’s liability for the contractor’s consequential loss Subcontractor’s liability to the customer What is subcontracting? While contractual rights and benefits are, unless expressly restricted, generally capable of assignment, contractual duties or burdens are not. Nonetheless, in some cases those obligations can be performed vicariously through subcontracting. Subcontracting is the delegation by the main contractor of part or all of its obligations under its contract with the customer to a third party (the subcontractor) for the subcontractor to perform. Where such vicarious performance is permitted, the contractor’s liability under the main contract does not pass to the subcontractor. The contractor remains answerable to the customer for any non-performance by the subcontractor, even if the customer has agreed to the arrangement. There is no privity of contract between the customer and...

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and not maintained. Court of Appeal—continuing breach and concurrent causes of action The Court of Appeal examined whether a continuing breach could operate as a concurrent cause of action when allocating loss under an indemnity in a share sale agreement that made the seller responsible for losses arising from services performed before the transfer date. The question was whether the pre-transfer negligence amounted to a breach of duty that persisted day by day after the transfer, so that a new cause of action accrued each day, creating a concurrent claim alongside the indemnified breach which, following EE Caledonia, would bar the appellant from relying on the indemnity. By a majority, and departing from the first instance decision, the court held there was no continuing breach, hence no concurrent cause of action, and the indemnity could be relied upon after the transfer until fresh causes of action later materialised (which occurred some nine months afterwards). Lady Justice Gloster dissented and would have upheld...