When is an employer liable for an employee's negligence in Ontario?

An employer can be held vicariously liable for an employee's negligence when the wrongdoing occurred within the course and scope of employment - meaning it was sufficiently connected to the duties the employer actually assigned, even though the employer itself was not personally careless. Courts look at whether the job created or significantly increased the risk of the harm occurring, whether the employer gave the employee the opportunity to cause it, and whether the conduct furthered the employer's business to at least some degree, as opposed to being a purely personal detour unrelated to the job.

A common example is an employee causing a collision while driving for work purposes; the employer can be liable for that negligence alongside, or instead of, the employee personally. Vicarious liability generally does not extend the same way to independent contractors, since that is a different legal relationship with less employer control, though there are exceptions depending on the specific arrangement. Practically, this matters a great deal to an injured person, since an employer is often better resourced and more likely to be insured than an individual employee, making it more realistic to actually recover a judgment.