People who act negligently often do so while performing their job duties. Whether it is a trucker who drives while fatigued or a nursing home employee who fails to properly supervise residents, these individuals’ actions or inactions can lead to serious harm. Victims, of course, can take legal action against these individuals when negligence results in harm, but the truth of the matter is that oftentimes the damages suffered by victims are so extensive that individual wrongdoers are unable to fully compensate for them.
This is where a vicarious liability claim can prove beneficial. This legal theory allows an individual to pursue a lawsuit against an employer for the harmful negligence of its employee. Therefore, truck accident victims may be able to sue a truck company, and victims of nursing home neglect may be able to pursue a claim against the company that owns the nursing home in question. By doing so, victims may increase their chances of reaching deeper pockets that are much more likely to pay for the full extent of damage caused.
There are defenses to vicarious liability, though. Quite often employers claim that their employees were acting outside the scope of their employment, thereby removing the employer’s responsibility for the employee’s actions or inactions. This means that there is often a lot of legal interpretation to be had with regard to what, exactly, an employee’s actions constituted at the time the victim in question was harmed.
Filing a lawsuit against anyone, let alone a business, can be challenging and overwhelming. Those who aren’t prepared for the legal battle ahead of them may find themselves extremely disadvantaged, meaning that opportunities for financial compensation may be missed. New Yorkers who have been harmed by negligence shouldn’t let this be them. That is why skilled legal advocates stand ready to assist them in their fight for a just outcome.
