What does 'Qui facit per alium facit per se' mean?

Answer 1

"Qui facit per alium facit per se" means "He who acts through another, acts himself." The concept is a legal parallel to "respondeat superior", which means that "a superior person (such as an employer) is fully responsible for the actions of a subordinate person (such as an employee)". There is an area of common law (tort law) called business agency or commercial agency, which deals with situations where one person, called the principal, authorizes a second person, called the agent, to deal with a third person. You should note that in common law, a "person" might be an individual or a partnership or a corporation or any other organization. Under the concept of "qui facit per alium facit per se", the principal is totally responsible for actions of the agent, even if incompetent or negligent, so long as the agent acted within the limits of stated authority. The simplest example of agency would be where a business manager authorizes a salesperson to sell goods, property or services to a customer. In the eyes of the law, the manager is fully responsible for the completion of the sale agreement; and as long as the salesperson has acted within the bounds of his/her authority, he/she cannot be held legally liable for the failure of the manager to satisfy the terms of the agreement with the customer. A more complex example would be where a corporation's board of directors authorizes the corporation's president to hire a law firm to represent the corporation in a legal action; the law firm then authorizes one of their lawyers to represent the law firm in a court of law. Here there is a chain of agency with each person in the chain subordinate to the preceding party; the board of directors is acting as agent for the corporation and its owner investors, the president is acting as agent for the board of directors, the law firm is acting as agent for the president, and the lawyer is acting as agent for the law firm. Under "qui facit per alium facit per se", the corporation is a legal "person" fully responsible for the consequences or benefits of any court action resulting from the lawyer's representation as long as everyone in the chain of agency has acted within the scope of their respective authority. The "qui facit per alium facit per se" principle does not apply in criminal law. If a superior person engages a subordinate person to commit a crime, both are considered to have committed the crime. This type of infraction is frequently prosecuted as a conspiracy. Under conspiracy doctrine, a crime does not actually have to be committed; the mere agreement to commit a crime is itself a crime. One advantage to a prosecutor is that under conpiracy doctrine it is not necessary to establish who is superior and who is subordinate or who actually committed a crime which was conspired; everyone in a conspiracy is equally guilty (although extenuating circumstances might temper their sentences).