Vicarious Liability

This is generally applied to crimes that do not require criminal intent, e.g., those that affect the public welfare but which do not require the imposition of a prison term. The principle is that in such cases, the public interest is more important than private interest, and so Vicarious Liability is imposed to deter or to create incentives for employers to impose stricter rules and supervise more closely. In Commonwealth v. Koczwara, the Defendant was the licensed operator of a tavern which was found to have supplied minors with alcohol. The offense became one of strict or absolute Liability when applied vicariously because of the need to protect weak and vulnerable members of society, and the omission of words such as "knowingly", "willfully" or "intentionally" in some of the offenses indicated a legislative intent to permit this eventuality. Staples v United States, the Defendant was initially convicted of being in possession of an unregistered machine-gun. It was a rifle that had been modified for rapid fire, thereby putting it in violation of the National Firearms Act. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case.

The majority held that the Defendant needed actual knowledge about the nature of his weapon in order for him to be convicted. The dissenting Opinion states that it was irrelevant that he did not know about the modification because statutes regulating dangerous weapons are public welfare statutes and can be interpreted to exclude the Mens Rea requirement of knowledge. Hence, as long as Defendants knows that they are dealing with a dangerous product or device that places them in a responsible relationship to the public, they should recognize that strict regulations are more likely and assume that the United States Congress would intend to place the burden on the Defendant to ascertain at his peril whether his conduct comes within the inhibition of the statute.