Vicarious liability is when one, other than the person who was actually negligent, may be held responsible for the negligent actions of another person. Two common possible vicarious liability relationships would be parent/child and employer/employee. These are possible vicarious liability relationships because in both cases one party (parent and employer) has control over the other party (child and employee).
For an employer to be vicariously liable for the negligent actions of an employee, generally the employee would had to have committed the negligent act during the course of employment. There some exceptions though such as if the employee physically harms someone then the employee would be wholly responsible for their actions unless they were told to do it by the employer or it was part of their job, such as a police officer.
In the case of a parent, in the United States it is still usually a case by case basis to determine if the parent is vicariously liable. Parents are often liable for their actions of neglect like if they were not properly supervising their child and their child did something negligent during that time. It looks as though more communities are wanting parents to be more vicariously liable for their children's negligent actions.
