Chapter 5 Flashcards
Tort
A wrong. There are three categories of torts: (1) intentional torts, (2) unintentional torts (negligence), and (3) strict liability.
Intentional Tort
A category of torts that requires that the defendant possessed the intent to do the act that caused the plaintiff’s injuries.
Assualt
(1) The threat of immediate harm or offensive contact or (2) any action that arouses reasonable apprehension of imminent harm. Actual physical contact is unnecessary.
Battery
Unauthorized and harmful or offensive direct or indirect physical contact with another person that causes injury.
False Imprisonment
The intentional confinement or restraint of another person without authority or justification and without that person’s consent.
Merchant Protection Statuses
Statuses that allow merchants to stop, detain, and investigate suspected shoplifters without being held liable for false imprisonment if (1) there are reasonable grounds for the suspicion, (2) suspects are detained for only a reasonable time, and (3) investigations are conducted in a reasonable manner.
Tort of Misappropriation of the Right to Publicity
An attempt by another person to appropriate a living person’s name or identify for commercial purposes.
Defamation of Character
False statement(s) made by one person about another. In court, the plaintiff must prove that (1) the defendant made an untrue statement of fact about the plaintiff and (2) the statement was intentionally or accidentally published to a third party.
Libel
A false statement that appears in a letter, newspaper, magazine, books, photograph, movie, video, and so on.
Slander
Oral defamation of character.
Product Disparagement
False statements about a competitor’s products, services, property, or business reputation. Also known as trade libel, product disparagement, and slander of title.
Intentional Misrepresentation
The intentional defrauding of a person out of money, property, or something else of value. Also known as fraud or deceit.
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
A tort that says a person whose extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another person is liable for that emotional distress. Also known as the tort of outrage.
Malicious Prosecution
A lawsuit in which the original defendant sues the original plaintiff. In the second lawsuit, the defendant becomes the plaintiff and vice versa.
Unintentional Tort
A doctrine that says a person is liable for harm that is the foreseeable consequence of his or her actions. Also known as negligence.
Duty of Care
The obligation people owe each other not to cause any unreasonable harm or risk of harm.
Breach of the Duty of Care
A failure to exercise care or to act as a reasonable person would act.
Injury
A plaintiff’s personal injury or damage to his or her property that enables him or her to recover monetary damages for the defendant’s negligence.
Actual Cause
The actual cause of negligence. A person who commits a negligent act is not liable unless actual cause can be proven. Also called causation in fact.
Proximate Cause
A point along a chain of events caused by a negligent party after which this party is no longer legally responsible for the consequence of his or her actions. Also called legal cause.
Professional Malpractice
The liability of a professional who breaches his or her duty of ordinary care.
Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
A tort that permits a person to recover for emotional distress caused by the defendant’s negligent conduct.
Negligent per se
A tort in which the violation of a statute or an ordinance constitutes the breach of the duty of care.
res ipsa loquitur
A tort in which the presumption of negligence arises because (1) the defendant was in exclusive control of the situation and (2) the plaintiff would not have suffered injury but for someone’s negligence. The burden switches to the defendant to prove that he or she was not negligent.
Good Samaritan Law
A statute that relieves medical professionals from liability for ordinary negligence when they stop and render aid to victims in emergency situations.
Superseding or Intervening Event
An event for which a defendant is not responsible. The defendant is not liable for injuries caused by the superseding or intervening event.
Assumption of the Risk
A defense a defendant can use against a plaintiff who knowingly and voluntarily enters into or participates in a risky activity that results in injury.
Contributory Negligence
A doctrine that says a plaintiff who is partially at fault for his or her own injury cannot recover against the negligent defendant.
Comparative Negligence
A doctrine under which damages are apportioned according to fault.
Strict Liability
Liability without fault.
