I disagree with the views of my debating team members. With respect to my colleagues, their view is based on the assumption that the people observing the employee’s assault saw it as an action committed by his employer or, for some other reason, saw the employer in a negative light. Remembering that the charge was not ‘Risking damage to the reputation of the employer’, but rather ‘Causing actual damage to the reputation of the employer’.
It is trite law that the employer has the onus of proving the employee guilty of the alleged offence. In practice, it is reasonably possible that none of the witnesses to the incident projected on to the employer any vacarious blame for the assault merely because the perpetrator appeared to be in its employ.
Reasonable, rational humans would not necessarily assume that the employer was bad merely because of something that its employee did. If it were true that observers would jump to such a conclusion then, every time it is reported in the media that an employee was charged for an offence, we as observers would assume that his employer was vicariously responsible, whether directly or indirectly. We do not do that because our rational minds are able to distinguish an employee from an employer. The test for this is a rational one based on the reasonable person principle. Viz. If you had observed the employee assaulting someone would you see his employer in a bad light?
In view of the above the employer in casu would have to bring at least one witness to the hearing to state that the employee’s conduct made him or her believe that he worked for a bad employer.
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