Respondeat Superior in the Light of Comparative Law
![handle is hein.journals/louilr4 and id is 29 raw text is: Respondeat Superior In The Light
Of Comparative Law
ROBERT NEUNER*
The law, in adjusting conflicts of interests, must necessarily
make use of concepts. These are the tools with which it works in
its endeavor to produce desired social results. Like a craftsman,
the lawyer must be concerned about the efficiency of his tech-
nique; he must be on the alert to determine whether the concepts
he uses are the most effective for his purpose. One available test
is to assemble the tools familiar to him and compare them with
those employed in other legal systems. Such a comparative study
does not, of course, proceed upon the assumption that a foreign
system is better than our own, for we can profit from its mistakes
as well as its virtues.
Not all fields of law lend themselves equally well to a com-
parative investigation of this kind. Such a study can be under-
taken with profit only if at least three basic conditions are pres-
ent. First, there must exist a similarity in the economic and social
situations prevailing in the countries whose legal systems are
being compared. Second, there must be a fundamental agreement
in general policy on the questions in issue. Third, there must
exist a difference in the legal techniques employed in enforcing
a common policy.
The purpose of the present study is to place side by side
the several competing techniques employed by the United States,
England, France, Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in deal-
ing with the liability of a master for the torts of his servants.
In this manner we shall seek to ascertain which set of techniques
more properly fulfills the function assigned to it. This subject
generally satisfies the above mentioned conditions, but there are
exceptions. As to certain problems, for example those relating to
double employment, the techniques employed by the various sys-
tems are so similar that the comparison cannot be useful. Hence,
* Instructor in Law, Yale University.
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Respondeat Superior in the Light of Comparative Law
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