''Qui facit per alium facit per se'' (anglicised

Late Latin Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity.Roberts (1996), p. 537. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to 6th centuries CE, and continuing into the 7th century in ...

), which means "He who acts through another does the act himself", is a fundamental

legal maxim A legal maxim is an established principle or proposition of law, and a species of aphorism and general maxim (philosophy), maxim. The word is apparently a variant of the Latin , but this latter word is not found in extant texts of Roman law with ...

of the

law of agency The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, who is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the pri ...

. It is a maxim often stated in discussing the liability of employer for the act of employee in terms of vicarious liability." According to this maxim, if in the nature of things, the master is obliged to perform the duties by employing servants, he is responsible for their act in the same way that he is responsible for his own acts. The maxim is a shortened form of the fuller 18th-century formulation: ''qui facit per alium, est perinde ac si facit per se ipsum'': "whoever acts through another acts as if he were doing it himself." Indirectly, the principle is in action or present in the duty that has been represented by the agent so the duty performed will be seen as the performance of the agent himself. Whatever a principal can do for himself, can be done through an agent. The exception to this maxim would be acts of personal nature.

Other uses

The expression is also the motto of

The Perse School The Perse School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private school (English Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging Day school, day and, in the case of the Perse, a former boarding school) in Cambridge, England. Founded i ...

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, where it is interpreted, somewhat poetically, as "He who does good to another does good to himself."

References

Brocards (law) Legal rules with Latin names Legal doctrines and principles {{law-stub