BPL

Question 1

*Carroll Towing Co.

Answer 1

Moving a barge caused ropes tying another barge to dock to break, and that barge hit a tanker, which made her sink. No bargee on board. Learned Hand said the bargee being absent meant there was negligence because BPL RULE: the owner’s duty to provide against injuries is a function of 3 variables: 1) probability she will break away (probability of damage = P), 2) gravity of resulting injury if she does (gravity of injury = L), and 3) the burden of adequate precautions (burden = B). Liability depends on if B

Question 2

*Andrews

Answer 2

Briefcase fell from overhead bin of airplane and injured someone. Heightened duty for common carriers (duty of utmost care!) and they are responsible for even the slightest negligence.
o Applying BPL: items falling (P) was relatively small – even though lots of items falling, wayyy more flights. Reasonable estimate for L may lead to conclusion that PL is pretty tiny and B is likely bigger. BUT here the court said safety measures were not “prohibitively expensive” so it is really going against a BPL analysis because common carriers need to do “all that human care, vigilance, and foresight reasonably can do under all the circumstances.”

Question 3

*Helling

Answer 3

Court said an eye doctor needed to do a pressure test in the eye even though not customary for patients under 40 (extremely rare to get the disease, but the test is inexpensive). The concurrence even urged strict liability. Our math in class showed that B>PL, so advice to eye doctors would be to ignore the court bc it is too expensive to test. The customary care standard has mostly survived, meaning Helling was indeed ignored.