ABSTRACT
A further benefi t to be derived from imposing fi duciary liability on another person is that the person thus classifi ed as a fi duciary acquires a different status from that which they held previously. They acquire a recognition from the legal system that they ought to be considered as holding a particular set of rights as a mark of their own social signifi cance. So, for example, if employers were accepted as being fi duciaries in relation to the employment contracts created with employees, that would reverse the power relation which would otherwise exist between employer and employee: the employer would cease to be simply the ‘master’ in a master-and-servant relationship (the precursor of what we now call ‘employment law’ or ‘labour law’) and instead would become a person owing duties to the employee which would also carry wide-ranging legal consequences.
