Court case[1900] 2 QB 530

At the end of one of its journeys, an omnibus of the defendant company was standing at the terminus. In the absence of the driver, who had gone away for his dinner, the conductor of the omnibus drove it through some side streets in order to turn it round so as to be ready for the next journey. While doing so he drove negligently and injured the plaintiff. There was no evidence that the conductor had been authorised by the company to drive the omnibus, or that it was any part of his duties to do so; his employment was as a conductor to collect fares.

The Court of Appeal held the company not liable. The conductor was employed to act as a conductor, not as a driver, and it was not within the scope of his employment to drive the omnibus. In the absence of evidence that he had express or implied authority to drive it, or that driving it in an emergency was necessary for the company's business, the act of driving was not a wrongful mode of doing something he was employed to do, but the doing of a different thing altogether. The company was therefore not vicariously liable for his negligence.