Study 2 - Negligence: The ABC Rule (Common Law) Flashcards
According to this rule, a plaintiff is entitled to succeed if three rules are followed to the satisfaction of the court:
Keywords: Rule, Negligence
A. A duty of care existed
B. Breach of that duty occurred
C. Causal Relationship between the breach and damages is shown
Negligence requires an understanding of what is meant by the reasonable person.
What case provided one of the most frequently cited descriptions of the term?
Arland v. Taylor, 1955 CanLII 145 (ON CA)
The reasonable person is not an extraordinary or unusual creature
The reasonable person is not superhuman
The reasonable person is not required to display the highest skill of which anyone is capable
The reasonable person is not a genius who can perform unusual feats
He is not possessed of unusual powers of foresight
What principle holds that: a person will be responsible for damage to others when it should have been reasonable contemplated that injury to another would have occurred during the conduct?
Keywords: Principle, duty of care
Duty to Your Neighbour Principle
In law the rule that you are to love you neighbor becomes “you must not injure your neighbor”
You must take care to avoid acts or omissions which you reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbor.
A neighbor is: Persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called in question.”
What precedent case established the Duty to Your Neighbour Principle?
Donoghue V. Stevenson [1932]
Keyword: snail, gingerbeer, manufacturer, Lord Atkin
Name four categories or entrant that towards which a occupiers owes a duty of care
Keywords: Entrant, duty of care, occupier
Trespasser
Licensee
Invitee
Contractual Entrant
What factors determine whether an occupiers duty to trespassers has been breached?
- Gravity of the probable injury
- Likelihood of the probably injury
- Character of the intrusion or trespass
- Nature of the premises trespassed on
- Knowledge the occupier had or ought to have had of the likelihood of a trespasser’s presence
- Cost to the occupier of preventing the harm
What is a person who has permission to enter a premises for his or her own purpose?
Keywords: known dangers
A licensee is a person who has permission to enter a premises for his or her own purposes.
A licensee is owed a greater duty of care than a trespasser.
An occupier must not introduce anything not connected with the normal use of the property, or which he knows to be dangerous, unless he warns the licensee of its presence.
Licensee is on the premises for their own enjoyment
Who is a person who is expressly or impliedly invited onto the premises for some purpose involving economic or potential economic benefit to the occupier or the premises?
Keywords: Economic Benefit, invitee, express or implied
An invitee.
Typically a shop where it is to the occupiers financial benefit to have an invitee on the premises.
The occupier owes the greatest duty of care toward an invitee.
Customers are regarded as invitees.
Invitees on the premises for the benefit of the property owner
Who is a person who enters onto premises under a contract with the occupier; for example, a hotel guest or a theater-goer?
A contractual entrant.
Duty of care toward this entrant is specified in the contract.
What precedent case established the case of strict liability?
keywords: Dangerous thing, escaped, dog owners liability, pollution liability
Rylands v. Fletcher [1868] UKHL 1
- The occupier used the land in a way that changed its natural form or use
- The occupier brought something onto the land that was likely to do mischief if it (a potentially dangerous thing) escaped
- The escape of the dangerous thing did occur
- The escape resulted in damage to the plaintiff
What case established rules to follow in order to prove a negligence claim based on the breach of a statute?
Keywords: Breach of statute
Right of Canada v. Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, 1983 (CanLII 21 (SCC)
- The statute must have been breached
- The conduct that was a breach of the statute must also have caused the damage for which compensation is sought
- The statute must have been intended to prevent the damage that occurred
The person making the claim must be among the group the statute was intended to protect.
What two precedent cases deal with Forseeability?
- Can a reasonable person foresee that the act contemplated would cause damage?
Polemis and Furness Withy & Co. Ltd.
- A wooden plank is negligently dropped into the hold of a ship
- causes a spark to ignite gas vapour in the hold
- results in the complete destruction of the ship
- the charterers (Furness Withy) are held liable
Wagon Mound Case - Overseas Tankship (U.K.) Ltd. v. Morts Dock and Engineering Co.
- overturned Polemis and Furness
- fuel oil from Wagon Mound negligently spilled into water
- spreads a considerable distance from ship
- experts feel that
What are the two types of damages, as expressed in monetary terms?
Special damages - quantifiable, such as medical and legal costs, lost salary, damaged clothing
General Damages - non-economic, hard-to quantify, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, future expenses, future loss of salary, permanent disability
What is a cause that, in a natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any new and independent cause, produces and event and without which the event would not have happened?
Proximate cause
Keywords: continuous event, unbroken, sequence
What are two other damages which may be awarded in negligence cases?
Nominal Damages - awarded when a plaintiff has a right of action but has suffered no real loss. May be as $1 award. Tend to be awarded in libel, slander, false arrest cases.
Punative damages. Punishment. Rarely awarded in civic courts if a criminal justice system imposed punishment based on the same incident
