Whittling Down of ‘Control Test’ in Relation to Determining Master-servant Relationship

Abstract

The control test is used to establish the existence of vicarious liability in case of unique relationships. The research paper defines vicarious responsibility and the many sorts of relationships in which a person can be held vicariously accountable. When a person is held liable for the torts committed by another, this is known as vicarious liability. This research paper largely deals with vicarious liability in the case of master-servant relation and the paper further discusses the concept of control test which is applied to distinguish between the contract of service and contract for service. The control test also determines whether the master should be held liable in any of the contracts. The paper also discusses about the traditional and modern view on the control test. The traditional form of the control test mostly checks for the extent of the master’s control over the performance of a servant’s work to determine vicarious liability. But this form of control test faced criticism during the modern times due to its inefficiency in determining liability. This inefficiency was due to the change in societal circumstances and skillful labor. Changes were accommodated to the existing control test to increase the efficiency of the control and these changes will explained through different case laws. The research paper will take on the method of qualitative data analysis through different case laws to study the evolution of control test, applications of control test and efficiency of the control test.