Cour de Cassation — Tort Law — Responsibility for the conduct of others — Employers and employees

Date Citation Note
16.06.2005 Bull.civ.2005.II no. 158, p. 141 (pourvoi 03-19.705)  
14.12.2001 2001 no. 17 p. 35 Case Cousin v. URSSAF Paris

Subsequent developments		 Unless the employee is guilty of a intentional office in carrying out his instructions
16.11.2000 Bull n° 151 Case Portal v. Rouis

Subsequent developments		 “Having held that the physical damage suffered by a player who had received a blow from an elbow in his face during a friendly football match was due to a blunder by another player which resulted from no aggressiveness or malevolence and that no breach of the rules or of the etiquette of sport had been committed, a court of appeal correctly found that the other player should be exonerated of all liability”
25.02.2000 JCP 2000. II. 10295
Case Costedoat v. Girard et autres		 “An employee who acts without exceeding the limits of the mission given him by his principal does not incur personal liability”
19.05.1988 D. 1988, 513 Case Société d'assurances La Cité v. Héro

Subsequent developments		 “An employer is discharged of liability if three conditions are fulfilled: that the employee acted outside the functions for which he was employed, without authorisation and for ends which had nothing to do with his position
Consequently, an insurer is not discharged of its civil liability where one of its inspectors, entrusted with obtaining the signature by an individual client of certain capitalisation contracts, made off with the funds which had been handed to him in the course of his functions”
04.05.1937 DH 1937, 363 Case Meyer v. Société Zuber, Riéder et Cie

Subsequent developments		 “Liability for the acts of an employee, iposed by article 1384, para 3 of the Civil Code, upon the master or employer, presupposes that the latter had the right to give the employee orders or instructions on the way of carrying out the functions in which he is employed; it is this right which is the basis of the authority and the subordination without which there is no real master
If, for a period, or for a certain operation, a master puts his habitual employee at the disposal of another, the liability transfers, to fall on the shoulders of this person, only if, at the time of the accident, the employee who has caused it is subject, by virtue of an agreement or the law, to his authority and direction”