{"id":2738,"date":"2023-09-05T18:46:20","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T22:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/respondeat-superior\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T14:27:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T18:27:55","slug":"respondeat-superior","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Respondeat Superior?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"rightphoto alignright lazyload\" src=\"\/jshared\/img\/icons\/spinner.svg\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/construction4.jpg\" alt=\"vicarious liability\" \/>Under respondeat superior, an employer or principal can be held legally responsible for the wrongful acts of an employee or agent, if such acts occur within the scope of the employment or agency. So under the doctrine of respondeat superior &#8211; which means &#8220;&#8216;let the superior make the answer&#8221; &#8211; an employer is vicariously liable for the tortious conduct of an employee when the employee is acting within the scope of the employment relationship.<\/p>\n<p>A &#8220;master&#8221; &#8211; a painfully archaic expression if there ever was one &#8211; is liable for the acts which his servant commits with the actual or apparent authority (reasonable people would think the servant had authority) of the master, or which the servant does within the scope of his employment, The master can also ratify the act with the knowledge of all the material facts.<\/p>\n<p>If you are looking for the Latin proverb &#8211; is there a lawyer who does not like Latin? &#8211; that summarizes respondeat superior, it is &#8220;qui facit per alium facit per se&#8221; (&#8220;the act of the servant, done within the scope and in the exercise of his employment, is in law the act of the master himself&#8221;).<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading What is Respondeat Superior?\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u2192<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Under respondeat superior, an employer or principal can be held legally responsible for the wrongful acts of an employee or agent, if such acts occur within the scope of the employment or agency. So under the doctrine of respondeat superior &#8211; which means &#8220;&#8216;let the superior make the answer&#8221; &#8211; an employer is vicariously liable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":2708,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2738","page","type-page","status-publish"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What is Respondeat Superior? | Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Free Consultation (800) 553-8082 Miller &amp; Zois helps injured victims and their families in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases. Maryland Personal Injury Lawyers. What is Respondeat Superior?.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is Respondeat Superior? | Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Free Consultation (800) 553-8082 Miller &amp; Zois helps injured victims and their families in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases. Maryland Personal Injury Lawyers. What is Respondeat Superior?.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Plaintiff Attorney Legal Information Center\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-21T18:27:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/construction4.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What is Respondeat Superior? | Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer","description":"Free Consultation (800) 553-8082 Miller & Zois helps injured victims and their families in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases. Maryland Personal Injury Lawyers. What is Respondeat Superior?.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What is Respondeat Superior? | Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer","og_description":"Free Consultation (800) 553-8082 Miller & Zois helps injured victims and their families in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases. Maryland Personal Injury Lawyers. What is Respondeat Superior?.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/","og_site_name":"Plaintiff Attorney Legal Information Center","article_modified_time":"2025-05-21T18:27:55+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/construction4.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/","url":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/","name":"What is Respondeat Superior? | Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/construction4.jpg","datePublished":"2023-09-05T22:46:20+00:00","dateModified":"2025-05-21T18:27:55+00:00","description":"Free Consultation (800) 553-8082 Miller & Zois helps injured victims and their families in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases. Maryland Personal Injury Lawyers. What is Respondeat Superior?.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/construction4.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/construction4.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/respondeat-superior\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Maryland Law Update | Personal Injury Appellate Opinions","item":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/maryland-law-update\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What is Respondeat Superior?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/","name":"Plaintiff Attorney Legal Information Center","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5881,"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2738\/revisions\/5881"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.millerandzois.com\/professional-attorney-information-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}