Talk:Vicarious liability (criminal)

Statements from history section

I remove the following statements from the "History" section, because I thought them to be either NPOV or academically unsupported:

• [Imposing vicarious liability on employers has] remained a tempting common law possibility: I don't think this statement is NPOV.
• the greater the monitoring and control exercised over the workers, the more an employer assumes the risk of the worker's conduct: As willful blindness generally does not vitiate a mens rea element, I find this statement unlikely to be true.
• [rational employers] might choose not to supervise and plead ignorance of their rogue workers' activities: I think this is connected to the previous statement.
• The problem is that, as the insurance industry developed, employers could transfer the risk for an ever smaller premium payment and ignore the threat to capital. This was included under what is now risk spreading, but I think it is logically inconsistent, as it enhances the ability to risk spread. It might be a better fit under exercise of control, but I think my addition of the final sentence takes care of the point.
• This is a distribution of loss or "risk spreading" justification and assumes that, when there are many customers, the price increases will be minimal. The assumption may not actually be justified if there are few customers or the business is close to insolvency.: I do not believe that the primary assumption is necessary, the secondary point is only true if the customers do not have "deep pockets", and the third point does not see much in practice as the party would not be worth the cost of suit.

In addition, I am unsure that the entire block at the bottom of this section, even as reorganized, merits inclusion in the criminal article for vicarious liability. It really seems to describe the justifications for imposition of vicarious civil liability. I will wait for more consensus before wholly removing this, however. Danculley 05:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC)