Abstract

This Article suggests a rethinking of the responsible relation doctrine, which holds business officials, managers, and supervisors criminally liable for failing to prevent or correct violations that occur within their areas of responsibility and control. The conventional public welfare justification for the doctrine is that it provides added and important deterrence of legal violations that threaten human health and safety. This Article suggests instead that the doctrine is better understood and defended as properly following from traditional criminal law prohibitions on acts of omission, and specifically from the principle that individuals may be criminally liable when their failure to fulfill their employment responsibilities results in a harm that is punishable as a crime. Examined through this lens, the responsible relation doctrine justifiably can be applied much more broadly than it has been to date, in a variety of contexts in which a defendant's employer gives him the responsibility to prevent violations of the law. This Article concludes by discussing some insights into the operation of the responsible relation doctrine that are highlighted by identifying the doctrine as a species of criminal omission, such as that the responsible relation doctrine is not, as it is often described, a form of imputed liability

ISSN

0091-4169

Disciplines

Law

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