212 MASTER LIABLE FOR ACT OF SERVANT. 



driven from it, by a servant of the defendant's, into the defendant's 

 gronnd, and there secured by the same servant and taken to the pound. 



Coleridge J, thought, as this was not within the scope of a servant's 

 ordinary authority, some direct authority from the master ought to be 

 proved : and this not being done, the plaintiff was nonsuited. The 

 Court refused a new rule, as it was clear the wrongful act could not be 

 traced to the master. Fatteson J. said, " Brucker v. Fromont, and other 

 cases, where the master has been held liable for the consequences of a 

 lawful act negligently done by his servant, do not apply ; here the act 

 was utterly unlawful. A master is liable ivhere his servant causes injury 

 hy doing a lawful act negligently, but not where he wilfully does an illegal 

 one. Every person is to be taken to know the law." 



A master is liable for an act done by his servant in the course of execu- 

 ting his orders with ordinary care ; and therefore where a servant was 

 ordered to lay down a quantity of rubbish near a neighbour's wall, but 

 80 that it might not touch the same, and the servant used ordinary care 

 in executing the orders of his master, but some of the rubbish naturally 

 ran against the wall, it was held that the latter might be sued in trespass " 



Gregory v. Fiper, 9 B. & 0. 591). Ar^Hj^er Littledale J. : "Where a servant 

 does work by order of his master, and the latter imposes a restriction 

 in the course of executing his order, which it is difficult for the servant 

 to comply with, and the servant in execution of the order breaks through 

 the restriction, the master is liable in trespass. Suppose the case of two 

 persons possessed of contiguous uninclosed land, and that one of them 

 desired his servant to drive his cattle, but not to let them go upon the 

 land of his neighbour, and that the cattle went upon the land of the 

 neighbour, the master would be answerable in trespass, because he has 

 only a right to expect from his servant ordinary, not extraordinary 

 care. If the servant, therefore, in carrying into execution the orders of 

 his master use ordinary care, and an injury is done to another, the master 

 is liable in trespass. If the injury arise from the want of ordinary care 

 in the servant, the master will only be liable in case " {ib.). And again 

 in Turberville v. Stampe, where the defendant's servants kejit a fire so 

 negligently guarded on the heath of their master, which was adjacent to 

 the plaintiff's, that the latter was burnt, the defendant was held liable. 

 Holt C.J. observed : " If my servant throws dirt into the highway, I am 

 indictable. So in this case, if the defendant's servant kindled a fire in 

 the way of husbandry, and proper for his employment, though he had no 

 express command of his master, yet the master shall be liable to an action 

 for damage done to another by the fire, for it shall be intended that the 

 servant had authority from his master, it being for his master's benefit.'' 

 In Kingdon v. Moss the plaintiff recovered against a veterinary surgeon 



