Torts Flashcards
Battery
In a battery action, the plaintiff must show that the defendant’s intentional act caused the harmful or offensive bodily contact. A bodily contact is offensive when it offends a reasonable sense of personal dignity. A person acts intentionally when they act with the desire to bring about the harm or they know that the harm is substantially certain to occur. Do not need to have intended the contact, just needed to have intended to cause the apprehension of harmful or offensive contact.
Negligence
In a negligence action, the plaintiff must show that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty to conform his conduct to a standard necessary to avoid unreasonable risk of harm to other. By failing to conform his conduct to a standard necessary to avoid unreasonable risk of harm to others, defendat breached the duty. need to show that the conduct was the actual (but for) cause and the proximate (forseeable) cause of the harm. Need to show that there were damages. In determinign if defednat’s conduct fell below the standard of care necessary to avoid unreasonable risk, the court will measure the conduct against the actions of a reaosnable, prudent person engaged in. a like activity. A reasonable prudent person takes appropriate precuations to avoid forseeable risk. in determining whether a particular precaution was warranted, the jury weighs the burden of taking the precautions against the gavity of the risk and the likelihood that it will eventuate.
defective product
A product is defective when it is unreasonably dangerous. A product may be dangerous because of design defect, manufacturing defect or failure to warn (inadequate instructions or warning).
joint venture doctrine
Joint venture doctrine allows the jury to impute one defendants negligence to the other defendants when they are engaged in a common project or enterprise and they have an explicit or implied understnding of how the project is to be carried out.
