Negligence: Duty, Breach, Causation Flashcards
An express or implied desire to perform a particular act; a state of mind (to do the act) preceding or accompanying the act. The defendant’s act itself must be expressly or implicitly intended; the resulting harm need not be intended but must have been reasonably foreseeable
Intent
holds that if the defendant does an act with the knowledge that it is substantially certain to produce a particular result, the defendant is deemed to have intended the result and is liable for his act
Substantial Certainty Doctrine
applicable when a defendant, while in the process of committing a tort against one person, unintentionally harms a third person or commits a different tort. In such a case, the
defendant’s wrongful intent is transferred to include the unintended victim or tortious act.
Transferred Intent Doctrine
a person who has an express or implied invitation to enter
property for the purpose for which the property is maintained.
Invitee
a person who has express or implied permission to enter business property to do business with the land occupier
Business Invitee
Someone who enters property in the possession of another for the purpose for which the property is held open to the public. It is not required that a business purpose be involved. Public employees acting within the scope of their official duties are included in the category.
Public Invitee
A person who enters property with the express or implied
permission of the land occupier. Such entry is not for the purpose of doing business.
Licensee
Someone who enters the real property of another
without express or implied consent.
Trespasser
Someone who conveys real or personal property by lease.
Lessor
Someone who has a possessory interest in real or personal property under a lease.
Lessee
Latin for “the thing speaks for itself”; a torts doctrine excusing the requirement that a plaintiff prove the defendant negligent if, under certain conditions, the fact of the negligence is obvious, and the defendant had exclusive control of the
instrument causing the injury
Res ipsa loquitur
The cause without which the event could not have occurred.
Actual Cause or Cause in Fact
used to establish actual cause. To apply the test, the plaintiff must show that but for the defendant’s act, the plaintiff would not have been injured
But for Test
The principle test that causation exists when the defendant’s conduct is an important or significant contributor to the plaintiff’s injuries.
Substantial Factor Test
literally means “without which not.” The term relates to
the “But For” Test in that if a defendant’s act is this of a plaintiff’s harm, then the plaintiff’s harm would not have occurred in the absence of that act.
Sine qua non
A cause that is legally sufficient to result in liability; an act or
omission that is considered in law to result in a consequence, so that liability can be imposed on the actor. Also, a cause that directly produces an event and without which the event would not have occurred.
Proximate Cause
A cause of an accident or injury that occurs between the defendant’s behavior and the injurious result, but that does not change the defendant’s liability.
Dependent Intervening Act
An act which would have occurred even in the absence of the original negligence. It breaks the chain of causation unless the act or its result was foreseeable in light of the original negligent act.
Independent Intervening Act
Under this rule an exception is made to the general rule that an unforeseeable result of the defendant’s act may break the chain of causation and negate liability. The defendant “takes his plaintiff as he finds him” in that the defendant will be liable even where his act produces an unforeseeable result if that
result is due to the plaintiff’s uncommon reaction or physical defect.
Thin Skull Plaintiff Rule also called the
Eggshell Plaintiff Rule
Liability for this, requires proof of a duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, a breach of that duty, and that the breach was the actual and proximate cause of damages suffered by the plaintiff.
Negligence
The general rule of duty holds that everyone owes a duty to exercise due care so as not to subject others to unreasonable risks of harm.
General Duty
Under Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., the majority opinion held that a defendant owes a duty only to those who
could foreseeably be endangered by the defendant’s negligent act. Therefore, according to the rule, there is no duty owed to a plaintiff who is in a position of apparent safety when the defendant commits a negligent act. This is the so-called
“orbit of danger” test.
Cardozo Rule on Duty
In the Palsgraf case, Justice Andrews the minority dissenting
opinion which has been applied as the majority opinion in other cases. It was argued that if the defendant owes a duty to anyone, then he owes a duty to everyone who could foreseeably be injured by his action.
Andrews Rule on Duty
the elements of duty and breach are proved when a defendant violates a safety statute which was intended to protect the class of people to which the plaintiff belongs from the kind of injury the defendant caused.
Negligence Per Se
