The employer had breached his duty of care to instruct in a safe system of working and to ensure that it would be carried out.

A group of appeals by teachers who had been suffering from work-induced stress.

The Court of Appeal set out key guidelines for employers’ duty of care in cases of stress at work.

A deckhand employed by the defendant was injured while working abroad under the supervision of the parent company.

The duty of care to provide a safe system of work was non-delegable and so the employer was liable.

The plaintiff was injured in a car accident while working for the defendant in Ethiopia. His employer had not warned him about the importance of obtaining adequate insurance.

The employer had no contractual or tortious duty of care to protect the employee’s financial position by advising about insurance cover.

A social work manager had a second nervous breakdown, after returning to work following a breakdown due to overwork.

The employer’s duty of care extended to prevention of psychological harm caused by stress. In this case it had been foreseeable and inadequate precautions had been taken.

A miner was crushed by machinery while working under the supervision of an agent of his employer.

The non-delegable duty of the employer for the safety of his workers was set out in three parts: safe workforce, safe tools, and safe system.

A doctor carried out sexual assaults while medically assessing employees and prospective employees of the defendant.

The doctor was an independent contractor rather than in a position ‘akin to employment’. There can be no vicarious liability for independent contractors.

The claimant had suffered abuse at the hands of local authority foster carers.

The local authority could be vicariously liable. The foster care was integral to the ‘business activity’ of the authority, despite the fact that it was not profit-making.

The defendant’s petrol tanker driver dropped a match while he was delivering petrol to a garage.

Despite the extremely careless nature of the employee’s act, he was within the course of employment for the purposes of vicarious liability.

A catering manager was injured due to the negligence of a prisoner working for nominal wages in the prison kitchen.

The Ministry of Justice was vicariously liable. The nature of the relationship between the wrongdoer and the defendant was in some ways closer than that of employment. Lord Reed set out three key factors.

A boarding house warden had sexually abused children in his care and his employer was sued in vicarious liability.

The owners of the school were vicariously liable for these torts of battery. The Salmond test for course of employment was adapted to include acts ‘closely connected’ to the employment.

A solicitor’s managing clerk embezzled funds from a client of the firm.

His employer was vicariously liable. These criminal acts were in the course of employment because this position gave him the ostensible authority to commit the frauds.

A woman was an intermittent interviewer for a market research company, under their instruction and control but not receiving holiday or sick pay.

A composite test was applied that took into account all aspects of the relationship, including the amount of control the defendant had. She was an employee rather than an independent contractor.

A crane driver was loaned by his main employer, along with a crane. They continued to pay him and had the power of dismissal but the contract stipulated that his employment would shift to the company to whom he was lent.

In such situations it will be difficult for the main employer to show that liability has shifted from them, and they remained his employer for the purposes of vicarious liability.

A petrol station attendant followed a customer to his car and committed battery and racial abuse.

Applying the Lister ‘close connection’ test, the unauthorized criminal act was held to be within the course of ­employment.

An employee of Morrison downloaded and publicly shared the personal details of some 100,000 other employees.

The employee was acting in pursuit of a personal vendetta rather than furthering his employer’s interests. He was not in the course of employment and therefore there was no vicarious liability.

A young boy was injured while helping a milkman deliver milk, despite the fact that the milkman was forbidden from employing help of this sort.

The milkman was within the course of employment because the obtaining of assistance from the boy had been in pursuance of his employer’s business.

The workers, who had been sent away from their usual base for a period of days, were involved in an accident on their return journey, which was earlier than had been planned.

They were within the course of employment. Here the House of Lords laid down five key factors which would determine the question of ‘course of employment’ in similar situations.

A wine delivery driver, after hours, diverted his horse and cart from the usual route and went off on an independent errand, when he ran down and killed the plaintiff.

This new and independent journey had nothing to do with his employment and so the defendant was not vicariously liable.

A van driver had given a lift to a hitchhiker, which was contrary to his employer’s instructions.

In contrast to Rose, this act had not been within the course of employment as it did not further the employer’s enterprise in any way.

A flood was caused in the claimant’s factory due to the negligence of a fitter of an air conditioning unit.

The fitter was under the supervision and control of the employees of two companies and for that reason dual vicarious liability was applicable.

Brothers in a monastic teaching order bound by vows to the Institute of Brothers, had abused pupils in their residential care.

Although different from the usual contractual relationship, the position between the abusers and the Institute was ‘akin to that between employer and employee’ and thus close enough to give rise to vicarious liability.