150 Workers Die Each Day From Doing Their Jobs

[Jim Lane]

66. The legal principle is called "respondeat superior"

It applies when there's a principal-agent relationship (here, the car company is the principal and it engages the imbibing worker as its agent). If a third party (car buyer) is injured because of something the worker did in the scope of his employment, then the principal is liable to the injured third party, even though it was the agent, not the principal, who did something wrong.

That doesn't apply as between the agent and the principal, though. The principal isn't liable to an injured agent if the injury occurred solely because the agent did something wrong.

This exchange brings up a point that's relevant to this thread: worker's compensation. In New York, and AFAIK in every other state, a worker who's injured on the job has no legal claim against the company or against a fellow employee, even if one of these entities was at fault for the injury. Instead, worker's compensation provides a set amount.

Worker's compensation has its pros and cons. The advantage for the worker is that he or she receives the worker's compensation payment automatically, without proving that someone else was at fault -- indeed, even if the injury was entirely the victim's own fault. The disadvantage for the worker is that the amount provided by worker's compensation is usually pretty paltry, much less than the worker would be awarded in a successful lawsuit. The worker won't actually receive adequate compensation unless there's some other party (other than the employer and fellow employees) that's at least partly at fault.