Principle: Master is liable for the acts of his servant done in the course of his duties.
Facts: X hired an employee Y in his construction business. Y was the property in-charge who received construction material and gave receipts for the material received by him. Z claimed payment for cement supplied to X which was duly received by Y. X denied the payment on the ground that he has only received half of the material and the balance was misutilized by the employee Y.

Question

In its second preliminary objection, Myanmar submits that The Gambia’s Application is inadmissible because The Gambia lacks standing to bring this case before the Court. In particular, Myanmar considers that only “injured States”, which Myanmar defines as States “adversely affected by an internationally wrongful act”, have standing to present a claim before the Court. In Myanmar’s view, The Gambia is not an “injured State” (a term that Myanmar appears to use interchangeably with the term “specially affected State”) and has failed to demonstrate an individual legal interest. Therefore, according to Myanmar, The Gambia lacks standing under Article IX of the Genocide Convention.
Myanmar draws a distinction between the right to invoke State responsibility under general international law and standing before the Court. It argues that, even if it were established that a “non-injured” Contracting Party to the Genocide Convention has the right to invoke another State’s responsibility for violations of the Convention, this would not necessarily entail the right to bring a case before the Court. To this end, Myanmar contends that there exists a difference between the common interest in the accomplishment of the purposes of the Genocide Convention and a State’s individual legal interest that may be enforce through the institution of proceedings before the Court. In Myanmar’s view, only States “specially affected” by an internationally wrongful act have standing to bring a claim before the Court.
Myanmar further submits that The Gambia’s claims are inadmissible in so far as they are not brought before the Court in accordance with the rule concerning the nationality of claims which, according to Myanmar, is reflected in Article 44 (a) of the International Law Commission’s Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts. Myanmar asserts that the rule concerning the nationality of claims applies to the invocation of responsibility by both “injured” and “non injured” States and irrespective of whether the obligation breached is an erga omnes partes or erga omnes obligation. Consequently, in Myanmar’s view, The Gambia lacks standing to invoke Myanmar’s responsibility.

Answer 1

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
A master is answerable for acts his servant carries out in the course of his duties, even if the servant later misuses what he received while doing that job.

Step 2: Key Formula or Approach:
Check what task the employee was authorised to do. If receiving the goods and giving a receipt was within that authority, the employer is bound by that act, separately from whatever happened to the goods afterward.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Y was X's property in-charge, so receiving material and signing receipts for it was part of his job.
Z supplied the full quantity of cement, and Y accepted delivery of all of it and gave a receipt, acting well within his authorised role.
What Y did with part of the cement afterward is a separate issue between X and Y, it does not undo the fact that X's authorised employee received the full amount on X's behalf.
Since receiving the material was within the scope of Y's duties, X is bound by that act and owes Z payment for the entire quantity supplied.

Step 4: Final Answer:
X is liable for the entire amount, since Y received the full material as X's authorised employee.

Answer 2

It helps to lay this out as a timeline of two separate events rather than one continuous story: first, Y receives the cement and signs the receipt, and only afterward, at a later point, does Y misuse part of it. Keeping these two moments distinct shows which one actually determines X's liability to Z.

X is liable for the entire amount: The first event on the timeline, Y receiving the full quantity of cement and signing for it, happened entirely within Y's authorised duties as property in-charge. Since that first event is what creates X's obligation to Z, and it covered the complete delivery, X owes the full payment regardless of what the second, later event involved.
X is liable for the part amount only i.e. for payment of the cost of half of the material: This treats the second event, Y's later misuse, as if it could reach backward and shrink what was validly received in the first event. But the receipt and the misuse are separate points in time, and only the first fixes what Z is owed.
X is not liable for the misconduct/embezzlement of his employee: This is true only with respect to the second event, Y's misconduct is indeed a separate matter from X's liability to Z. But it wrongly extends that separation to erase the first event too, when in fact the first event, Y's authorised receipt of the goods, is exactly what binds X to Z.
Z can claim the balance payment only from Y: Z's transaction, the first event, was completed with X through his authorised employee Y. Whatever happened to the goods afterward is a second, internal matter between X and Y, and does not shift Z's original claim away from X.

Separating the timeline into the authorised receipt of goods and Y's later, unrelated misuse shows that only the first event determines X's liability, and that covers the full amount.

Therefore, the correct answer is X is liable for the entire amount.

Answer 3

It helps to lay this out as a timeline of two separate events rather than one continuous story: first, Y receives the cement and signs the receipt, and only afterward, at a later point, does Y misuse part of it. Keeping these two moments distinct shows which one actually determines X's liability to Z.

X is liable for the entire amount: The first event on the timeline, Y receiving the full quantity of cement and signing for it, happened entirely within Y's authorised duties as property in-charge. Since that first event is what creates X's obligation to Z, and it covered the complete delivery, X owes the full payment regardless of what the second, later event involved.
X is liable for the part amount only i.e. for payment of the cost of half of the material: This treats the second event, Y's later misuse, as if it could reach backward and shrink what was validly received in the first event. But the receipt and the misuse are separate points in time, and only the first fixes what Z is owed.
X is not liable for the misconduct/embezzlement of his employee: This is true only with respect to the second event, Y's misconduct is indeed a separate matter from X's liability to Z. But it wrongly extends that separation to erase the first event too, when in fact the first event, Y's authorised receipt of the goods, is exactly what binds X to Z.
Z can claim the balance payment only from Y: Z's transaction, the first event, was completed with X through his authorised employee Y. Whatever happened to the goods afterward is a second, internal matter between X and Y, and does not shift Z's original claim away from X.

Separating the timeline into the authorised receipt of goods and Y's later, unrelated misuse shows that only the first event determines X's liability, and that covers the full amount.

Therefore, the correct answer is X is liable for the entire amount.

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The Correct Option is A

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Approach Solution -2

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