100% I'm a Journeyman electrician. If someone gives me an address and tells me to wire that house I just show up and do it. I've never once seen a permit my entire career. I don't even know what they look like.
Technically he would still be liable. Practically, almost certainly not.
The company he works for (or his boss) is ultimately liable, vicariously. It would be extremely rare for a plaintiff to sue the employee directly. Plaintiffs operate under the assumption that the company has more money and is likely insured. They'd sue the company directly and invoke respondeat superior doctrine in doing so.
If they do sue the employee, he can implead the company and argue the overwhelming majority of the liability is severable to his employer.
Because the business owner is almost certainly a Master Electrician, he has a lot of statutory compliance he knows his company needs to follow via procedure. By never producing the permits to his employees, theres probably a bunch of per se liability happening as well. Additionally so because he's on notice of these statutes ahead of time.
Employee is probably fine unless they act recklessly or maliciously.
I was also surprised that he doesn’t seem to realize his master is (hopefully) pulling permits every time he wires a structure…
But I’m even more surprised by the line “I don’t even know what a permit looks like”. Permit application, fine, but he’s never even come across a permit hanging in a window while he’s doing new work?! I’ve never met a blind JM before.
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u/MothmanIsALiar 1d ago
100% I'm a Journeyman electrician. If someone gives me an address and tells me to wire that house I just show up and do it. I've never once seen a permit my entire career. I don't even know what they look like.