SCOPE OF THE BUSINESS: THE BORROWED SERVANT PROBLEM

Authors

Talbot Smith, University of Missouri

Abstract

If your client wants to erect an office building he may be advised of the cost within narrow limits. The necessary expenditure will be X dollars plus Y lives or limbs. If his talents take the turn of bridge construction similar computations may be made. To carry forward to completion either of these projects he must use materials of various kinds, and he must use men. The expenditure of the human, animate, material is as inevitable as the expenditure of the inanimate. With increased care and skill the curve of expenditure of the human material will approach the asymptote of zero, but as long as men and materials are susceptible of failure, the Utopian condition of no loss whatever will never be reached. Loss, expenditure, there will always be. The business machine requires fuel. Perpetual motion has not yet arrived. So much is conceded. It is the last concession we shall make, for while someone must pay, there is no unanimity of opinion as to who that someone shall be.

Recommended Citation

Talbot Smith, SCOPE OF THE BUSINESS: THE BORROWED SERVANT PROBLEM, 38 Mich. L. Rev. 1222 (1940).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol38/iss8/5