Study 2: Negligence: The ABC Rule (Common Law) - Key Terms Flashcards
Duty of care
The obligation that a person has to exercise reasonable care with respect to the interests of others, including protecting them from harm
Trespasser
A person who wrongfully enters onto someone else’s land with neither the right nor permission to be there
Licensee
A person who has permission to enter a premises for his or her own purposes
Invitee
A person who is expressly or impliedly invited onto the premises for some purpose involving economic or potential economic benefit to the occupier of the premises. For example, a customer entering a store for the purpose of making a purchase.
Contractual entrant
A person who enters onto premises under a contract with the occupier; for example, a hotel guest or a theatre-goer.
Strict liability
Liability imposed by a court or by a statute in the absence of fault when harm results from activities or conditions that are extremely dangerous, unnatural, hazardous, extraordinary, abnormal, or inappropriate.
Hold-harmless agreement
An agreement that allows one party to protect another party against any future losses or claims that may result from a particular activity. Also known as an indemnity agreement.
Indemnity agreement
A written contract entered into between indemnitor and surety in which the indemnitor secures surety against loss the surety may sustain as a result of having issued a bond for a third party (usually a company owed by the indemnitor) or for the indemnitor.
Bailor
A person entrusting goods to another.
Bailee
In contract and property law, one to whom goods or property are entrusted for a stated purpose. Can be either gratuitous (i.e. for no consideration) or for hire (i.e. for consideration).
Bailment
The act of placing or transferring goods from a bailor to a bailee.
Remoteness of damage
A legal test to determine the right to recovery based on the predictability of cause or circumstance. Also called “remote cause.”
Proximate cause
A cause that, in a natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any new and independent cause, produces an event and without which the event would not have happened.
Nominal damages
Minimal monetary damages awarded by a court when a legal wrong has occurred but limited or no actual loss has been suffered by the party pursuing the action.
Punitive damages
Damages in excess of those required to compensate the plaintiff for the wrong done, which are imposed in order to punish the defendant because of the particularly wanton or willful nature of his or her wrongdoing. Also called “exemplary damages.”
