If there is one thing dental colleagues have heard a lot about this year, apart from COVID-19 and mandatory vaccinations, it is vicarious liability. If you are a practice owner you are unlikely to have missed the two legal cases, extensively covered by the BDA, involving two practice owners who were judged to be vicariously liable for the actions of their self-employed associates when they themselves had never seen the patients in question.

Whilst the concepts of non-delegable duty and vicarious liability are recognised as a way of ensuring that people who have been harmed by the action of another, obtain appropriate compensation, it has only recently been deployed by one law firm representing patients.

The BDA has proposed that the 'Associate Agreement' should include additional clauses to reduce the risk of liability falling on the practice owner's shoulders long after the associate has left the practice. These model contracts are on the website for BDA Expert Members to download. Meanwhile, BDA Indemnity is working hard with other mutual organisations and insurers to resolve this conundrum by adopting a universal approach to managing this new peril. My New Year's wish is that the conundrum should be resolved.