relied on by cases which have become leading in their turn.[1] It therefore is interesting to note that it only applied the principles of Beaulieu v. Finglam, in the Year Book 2 Henry IV., to a fire outside the house, that the illustration taken from the Roman law shows that Lord Holt was thinking of the responsibility of a paterfamilias, and that in another case within three years[2] he made use of the fiction of identity.
I may add, by way of confirmation, that Blackstone, in his Commentaries, after comparing the liability of the master who "hath the superintendence and charge of all his household" if any of his family cast anything out of his house into the street, with that of the Roman paterfamilias,[3] further observes that the "master may frequently be answerable for his servant's misbehavior, but never can shelter himself from punishment by laying the blame on his agent. The reason of this is still uniform and the same; that the wrong done by the servant is looked upon in law as the wrong of the master himself."[4]
There is another line of cases which affords striking and independent evidence that the law of master and servant is a survival from slavery or other institution of like effect for the present purpose, and that the identification of the two parties was carried out in some cases to its logical result. If a servant, although a freeman, was treated for the purposes of the relation as if he were a slave who only sustained the persona of his master, it followed that when the master was liable, the servant was not. There seems to have been a willingness at one time to accept the conclusion. It was said under James and Charles I. that the sheriff only was liable if an under-sheriff made a false return, "for the law doth not take notice of him."[5] So it was held in the latter reign that case does not lie against husband and wife for negligently keeping their fire in their house, "because this action lies on the ... custom ... against patrem familias and not against a servant or a feme covert who is in the nature of a servant.[6] So
- ↑ Brucker v. Fromont, 6 T. R. 659; M'Manus v. Crickett, 1 East, 106; Patten v. Rea, 2 C. B. N. S. 606 (1857).
- ↑ Lane v. Cotton, 1 Salk. 17, 18.
- ↑ See also Noy's Maxims, c. 44.
- ↑ Bl. Comm. 431, 432.
- ↑ Cremer & Tookley's Case, Godbolt, 385, 389 (Jac. I.); Laicock's Case, Latch, 187 (H. 2 Car. I.).
- ↑ Shelley & Burr, 1 Roll. Abr. 2, pl. 7 (M. 1 Car. I). Cf. 1 Bl. Comm. 431; Com. Dig., Action on the case for negligence, A. C.
