HOTELKEEPERS LIABLE FOR ACTS OF SERVANTS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume VII, Issue 313, 23 July 1896, Page 10

HOTELKEEPERS LIABLE FOR ACTS OF SERVANTS.

In the Court of Appeal Case, London Commissioner of Police v. Cartman, which was an appeal against the ref usual of a magistrate to convict a publican whose barman had, in bis absence, supplied a drunken man with liquor, against the express instructions of the employer, the Lord Chief Justice, in giving his decision, said the question that arose was whether the magistrate was bound to convict the respondent of the offence of selling intoxicating liquour to a drun'l4? person contrary to the 13th section of the Licensing Act, 1872. The Act was intended, in the interests of public order, to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquors to drunken persons. The persons from whom the drunken person could alone get the intoxicating liquor were licensed persons. How did they carry on their business ? From the nature of the case they must, to a large extent, carry on their business by other persons. In some cases no doubt, a licensee might be in actual control and conduct of his own business,

but in the majority of cases that was not so —they deputed their business, beyond a very general supervision on their own part, to other persons. . . . It was apparently clear that there was no machinery by which the person actually selling, the agent or servant, could be convicted of an offence, and the only penalty the statute fixed was recoverable from the licensee only. It seemed to him impossible to give this narrow construction to the statute. It was intended that the responsibility should be put directly on the licensee. In this case he did not think there was any real hardship, because if (as apparently in this case) the magistrate was convinced that the publican honestly endeavoured and desired that the law should be satisfied, and that he was only to be made liable for the act of his servant, the magistrate could take that into account in imposing a small fine, and he could also direct, or abstain from directing that the conviction should be recorded against the man. He thought it would be indeed a thing of very evil consequences if, looking to the circumstances of this case, the respondent was here to be held not guilty of the offence charged under the section. Under these circumstances the case must go back to the magistrate for the infliction of a penalty.