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    Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim

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    Cayen Cervancia Cabiguen
    The document discusses the 1929 Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim case where a French national was unlawfully killed at an army barracks in Mexico by two Mexican army officers. The French-Mexican Claims Commission held that Mexico was internationally responsible for the conduct of the army officers, even though they acted outside their competence, because they acted in their capacity as officers and used means available to them by virtue of that capacity. The document also compares this case to the principle of vicarious liability in municipal law, where an employer can be held liable for unlawful acts of employees committed in the course of employment.

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    Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim

    Uploaded by

    Cayen Cervancia Cabiguen
    257 views1 page
    The document discusses the 1929 Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim case where a French national was unlawfully killed at an army barracks in Mexico by two Mexican army officers. The French-Mexican Claims Commission held that Mexico was internationally responsible for the conduct of the army officers, even though they acted outside their competence, because they acted in their capacity as officers and used means available to them by virtue of that capacity. The document also compares this case to the principle of vicarious liability in municipal law, where an employer can be held liable for unlawful acts of employees committed in the course of employment.

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    JEAN BAPTISTE CAIRE CLAIM

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    The document discusses the 1929 Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim case where a French national was unlawfully killed at an army barracks in Mexico by two Mexican army officers. The French-Mexican Claims Commission held that Mexico was internationally responsible for the conduct of the army officers, even though they acted outside their competence, because they acted in their capacity as officers and used means available to them by virtue of that capacity. The document also compares this case to the principle of vicarious liability in municipal law, where an employer can be held liable for unlawful acts of employees committed in the course of employment.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    257 views1 page

    Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim

    Uploaded by

    Cayen Cervancia Cabiguen
    The document discusses the 1929 Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim case where a French national was unlawfully killed at an army barracks in Mexico by two Mexican army officers. The French-Mexican Claims Commission held that Mexico was internationally responsible for the conduct of the army officers, even though they acted outside their competence, because they acted in their capacity as officers and used means available to them by virtue of that capacity. The document also compares this case to the principle of vicarious liability in municipal law, where an employer can be held liable for unlawful acts of employees committed in the course of employment.

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    State responsibility

    Mistreatment of foreign nationals

    Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim


    5 RIAA 516 (1929) (French - Mexican Claims Commission)
    A state may be held internationally responsible for the unauthorised acts of state officials, such as the
    unlawful killing of a foreign national by an army or police officer, where those officials purported to
    act in an official capacity and used the means placed at their disposition by virtue of that capacity.
    On 11 December 1914, M Jean-Baptiste Caire, a French national, was unlawfully shot and killed at an
    army barracks in Mexico by two Mexican army officers, a major and a captain aided by a few
    privates, after M Caire refused a demand by one of the officers to pay a sum of money.
    In awarding an indemnity in the sum of 20,000 Mexican gold piastres in favour of M Caires widow,
    the French-Mexican Claims Commission held that Mexico was internationally responsible for the
    conduct of the army officers. In this regard, Presiding Commissioner Verzijl observed that, under the
    doctrine of objective responsibility (state responsibility for the acts of state officials or state organs
    even in the absence of fault on the part of the state), a state is internationally responsible for acts
    committed by its officials or organs outside their competence if the officials or organs acted at least
    to all appearances as competent officials or organs, or used powers or methods appropriate to their
    official capacity . Applying this principle to the facts of the present case, Presiding Commissioner
    Verzijl concluded as follows:
    The officers in question consistently conducted themselves as officers ; in this capacity they
    began by exacting the remittance of certain sums of money; they continued by having the victim taken
    to a barracks of the occupying troops; and it was clearly because of the refusal of M Caire to meet their
    repeated demands that they finally shot him. Under these circumstances, there remains no doubt that,
    even if they are to be regarded as having acted outside their competence, which is by no means certain,
    and even if their superior officers issued a counter-order, these two officers have involved the
    responsibility of the State, in view of the fact that they acted in their capacity of officers and used the
    means placed at their disposition by virtue of that capacity.

    Indemnity awarded
    A comparison with vicarious liability in municipal law
    In Jean-Baptiste Caire Claim (above), the unlawful conduct of the army officers who killed M Caire was
    imputed or attributed to Mexico for the purposes of state responsibility. An analogy in municipal law is the
    vicarious liability in tort of an employer for the conduct of an employee in the course of employment. In the
    latter context, provided that there is a sufficient connection between the employees conduct and the course of
    employment, an employer may be held vicariously liable in tort for the criminal act of an employee, such as the
    sexual assault of resident children committed by the warden of a boarding school (Lister v. Hesley Hall Ltd
    [2002] 1 AC 215).
    The reasoning in Caire may be compared with the decision of the Privy Council (on appeal from the Court of
    Appeal of Jamaica) in Bernard v. Attorney General of Jamaica [2004] UKPC 47. In this case, a police officer
    purporting to act in that capacity, unlawfully shot Mr Clinton Bernard in the head at point-blank range when Mr
    Bernard refused to comply with the police officers demand that the police officer be given the use of a public
    telephone before Mr Bernard had completed the call he was making. In a judgment delivered by Lord Steyn,
    the Privy Council held that the Crown, as the police officers employer, was vicariously liable in tort for the
    police officers unlawful, and almost certainly criminal, conduct. In this regard, the Privy Council emphasised
    that, although the police officer was off-duty at the time of the incident, the police officer had purported to act in
    an official capacity and had used the service revolver which off-duty police officers routinely were permitted to
    carry. Adapting the language of Presiding Commissioner Verzijl in Caire, the police officer in Bernard engaged
    the vicarious liability of the Crown in view of the fact that he had purported to act in his capacity as a police
    officer and had used the means placed at his disposition by virtue of that capacity.
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