An Independent Contractor in Tort
The employer of an independent contractor is generally not held vicariously liable for the tortious acts and omissions of the contractor, because the control and supervision found in an employer-employee or Principal-Agent relationship is lacking. However, vicarious liability will be imposed in some circumstances:
- where the contractor injures an invitee to the real property of the employer,
- the contractor is involved in an ultra-hazardous activity (one likely to cause substantial injury, such as blasting with explosives), or
- the employer is estopped from denying liability because he has held out the independent contractor as if he were simply an employee or agent.
- the employer is involved in an operation subject to obligations imposed by an public authority
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Famous quotes containing the word independent:
“For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer’s day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)