levo

Tort: Vicarious Liability

Tests for the status of employment: control and integration

  • 3 things to know
  • Components 2 and 3

Overview

Control test for employment status, weakness of the control test and integration or organisation test.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Key term

Why does employment status matter in vicarious liability?

Numbers

State the control test for employment status.

Evaluation

What is the weakness of the control test?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Why does employment status matter in vicarious liability?

    Model answer

    Vicarious liability normally attaches only to employees and to those in relationships akin to employment. A person engaging an independent contractor generally escapes it.

  2. 2

    State the control test for employment status.

    Model answer

    The control test asks whether the employer can direct not only what work is done but how it is done. Yewens v Noakes (1880) described a servant as subject to the master's command as to the manner of the work.

  3. 3

    What is the weakness of the control test?

    Model answer

    A skilled professional such as a surgeon cannot be told how to do the work. The control test would wrongly exclude many people who are plainly employees.

  4. 4

    How is control still useful today?

    Model answer

    Control remains an important factor even though it no longer decides the question alone. Hawley v Luminar Leisure [2006] made a nightclub liable for an agency doorman it controlled in practice.

  5. 5

    State the integration or organisation test.

    Model answer

    The integration test asks whether the work is done as an integral part of the business. Stevenson, Jordan and Harrison v MacDonald and Evans [1952] contrasted work integrated into a business with work merely accessory to it.

  6. 6

    What is the weakness of the integration test?

    Model answer

    The word integral is vague and gives little guidance in a borderline case. A highly skilled contractor can be essential to a business without being an employee.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

1Closed book
2Open book
3Closed book

The 3-step method, run for you

Answer cold, learn it, then prove it stuck. Levo tracks the jump between your first attempt and your last.

Parliamentary and European Law Making
Delegated Legislation
Statutory Interpretation
Judicial Precedent

Cram a whole paper in one sitting

Sort every topic into what you know and what you do not, then drill only the weak ones.

The court sits in .
StrasbourgLondonParis

Blank Blitz makes facts automatic

Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AAn interim injunction restrains publication before trial.
BPublication cannot be undone.
CAn injunction may be the only effective remedy.

Build It gets the exam shape right

Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

A Public Bill changes the general law.
TrueFalse

Test It catches misconceptions

Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

721941163128510

Brain Breaks between sessions

Short focus games to reset attention, so the next set lands better than the last.

Every question in Tort: Vicarious Liability, on a schedule.

Attempt a question from memory, write the correct version, then attempt it again. Levo records the jump between your first attempt and your last, and brings each question back on the day you are due to forget it.

Or £46 a year, about £3.83 a month. Cancel anytime.