Personal Injury Law

The Bryan Funeral Home and Vicarious Responsibility

By Rob McKinney

I posted on a recent decision from the Tennessee Court of Appeals on the mishandling of a corpse and it has sparked several comments on the blog. Therefore , I thought I would follow up with a couple of observations. The folks at Bryan Funeral Home may be excellent people as reported on one of the posts. However, Tennessee as with most states has a legal principle called Vicarious Responsibility. Vicarious Responsibility means that Bryan Funeral Home is liable for the acts of Tri-State Crematorium whether Bryan Funeral Home did anything wrong or not. The true definition is that" a person who is authorized to act for another person or in place of anther person is an agent of that person". A principal can be held responsible for the acts or omissions of the principal's agent. Here , the funeral home may be liable for the negligent acts of Tri-State. Vicarious responsibility or imputed liability is an important thing to investigate in every accident or injury case.

Full post as published by Nashville Personal Injury Lawyer on July 31, 2008 (boomark / email).