Is an employer of an independent contractor liable for collateral negligence of the latter?

The authorities cited by learned counsel clearly establish that an employer of an independent contractor is not liable for the collateral negligence of the latter. But in this case the negligence of the independent contractor was not the direct cause of the accident; between such negligence and the mischief done there intervened a conscious agency, the railway company, which had the opportunity and, as the jury found, the duty of inspection, and could have averted the mischief. On the authorities, the original wrongdoer ceases to be liable, and the conscious agent is liable: Buckner v. Ashby & Horner, Ltd. [1941] 1 KB 321, 110 LJKB 460. The judgment of the trial judge in that case quotes from a large number of cases and the same need not be cited here. The general effect of the decisions is thus summed up in Beven on Negligence, 4th ed., pp. 44 et seq.: “The principle that to fix liability for injuries brought about through a complicated state of facts, the last conscious agency must be sought; and the consideration that if, between the agency setting at work the mischief and the actual mischief done, there intervenes a conscious agency, which might or should have averted mischief, the original wrongdoer ceases to be liable, afford the clues for the unravelling the cases. On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that, though there may intervene various stages in the development of the mischief, yet, if none of these is due to a conscious volition, the last conscious agent continues to be liable.”