Torts Flashcards
Strict Liability
Under strict products liability, the manufacturer, retailer, or other distributor of a defective product may be liable for any harm caused by the product. The plaintiff must prove (i) the product was defective (in manufacture, design, or failure to warn), (ii) the defect existed at the time the product left the defendant’s control, and (iii) the defect caused the plaintiff’s injuries when the product was used in an intended or reasonably foreseeable way.
Manufacturing Defect
A manufacturing defect is a deviation from what the manufacturer intended the product to be that causes harm to the plaintiff. The test is whether the product conforms to the defendant’s own specifications.
Market Share Liability Doctrine
Under the market share liability doctrine, if the plaintiff’s injuries are caused by a fungible product and it is impossible to identify which defendant placed the harmful product into the market, the jury can apportion liability based on each defendant’s share of the market.
Alternative Causation Doctrine
Under the alternative causation doctrine, if the plaintiff’s harm was caused by (i) one of a small number of defendants, (ii) each of whose conduct was tortious, and (iii) all of whom are present before the court, then the court may shift the burden of proof to each individual defendant to prove that his conduct was not the cause in fact of the plaintiff’s harm.
Concert of Action Doctrine
Under the concert of action doctrine, if two or more tortfeasors were acting pursuant to a common plan or design and the acts of one or more of them tortiously caused the plaintiff’s harm, then all the defendants will be held jointly and severally liable.
Abnormally Dangerous Activities
Defendants engaged in abnormally dangerous activities may be held strictly liable for damages caused by that activity, even in the absence of negligence. Activities are considered abnormally dangerous if they create a foreseeable and highly significant risk of physical harm even in the exercise of reasonable care, and the activity is not commonly engaged in.
Battery
A prima facie case for battery requires that the plaintiff show that (i) the defendant intended to cause contact with the plaintiff’s person, (ii) affirmative conduct caused such a contact, and (iii) the contact caused bodily harm or was offensive to the plaintiff. Contact is harmful when it causes injury, physical impairment, pain, or illness. Contact is offensive when a reasonable person would find the contact offensive. A defendant intentionally causes the contact if he acts with the desire to bring about the contact or engages in action knowing that the contact is substantially certain to occur. In most jurisdictions, the defendant need only intend to bring about the contact, not that the defendant intends the contact to be harmful or offensive (often called the single-intent rule).
Negligence
Negligence is conduct, without wrongful intent, that falls below the minimum degree of ordinary care imposed by law to protect others against unreasonable risk of harm. A prima facie case of negligence consists of four elements: (1) Duty – the obligation to protect another against unreasonable risk of injury; (2) Breach of Duty – the failure to meet that obligation; (3) Causation – a close causal connection between the action and the injury; and (4) Damages – the loss suffered. All four elements must be established in order to maintain a claim for negligence.
In general, a duty of care is owed to all foreseeable persons who may foreseeably be injured by the defendant’s failure to act as a reasonable person of ordinary prudence under the circumstances. A breach of duty occurs when the defendant departs from the required standard of care, such as failure to act as a reasonable person, an unexcused violation of a statute, or, if there is no direct evidence, through res ipsa loquitur. However, compliance with a statutory standard does not insulate an act against liability for negligence.
Proximate Cause
In order to be liable for the man’s damages resulting from the infection, the court must find that the infection was proximately caused by the woman’s negligence. An actor is liable for any reasonably foreseeable harm suffered as a consequence of her negligence. Subsequent medical malpractice or other negligent acts are generally considered foreseeable intervening causes and will not break the chain of the defendant’s liability
Res ipsa loquitur
Under the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, the trier of fact may infer the existence of the defendant’s negligent conduct in the absence of direct evidence of negligence. The plaintiff must prove that: (1) the accident is of a kind which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of negligence; (2) the harm was caused by an agent or instrumentality within the exclusive control of the defendant; and (3) the harm was not due to any action on the part of the plaintiff.
Joint & Several Liability
Under the doctrine of joint and several liability, each of two or more defendants who is found liable for a single and indivisible harm is subject to liability to the plaintiff for the entire harm. The plaintiff can choose to collect the entire judgment from one defendant or portions of the judgment from various defendants, as long as the entire recovery does not exceed the full amount of the judgment.
False Imprisonment
False imprisonment requires that (i) a person intend to confine the plaintiff within a limited area, (ii) the person’s conduct causes the plaintiff’s confinement or the defendant fails to release the plaintiff from confinement despite owing a duty to do so, and (iii) the plaintiff is conscious of the confinement. The confinement may be physical, may be accomplished through use of threats, by failure to provide a means of escape, or by invalid use of legal authority. A plaintiff is not imprisoned if he submitted willingly to confinement. A plaintiff is not confined if he knows of a reasonable means of safe escape.
Negligence
To prove negligence, the plaintiff must establish that the defendant owed a duty, that it breached that duty, that its actions were both the actual and proximate cause of injury, and that damages resulted.
Here, Paul was a public invitee, someone invited to enter Funworld’s property for the purposes for which the land is held open to the public. Funworld’s duty of care to invitees includes a duty to use reasonable care to conduct reasonable inspections of the property, discover unreasonably dangerous conditions, and protect the invitee from them. Such a landowner is liable for negligence that causes an invitee to be injured due to unsafe conditions. Further, as noted above, because Employee indisputably was acting in the scope of his employment, a jury could properly find Funworld liable for injuries caused by its employee’s negligence.
In determining whether conduct lacks reasonable care, courts consider (i) the foreseeable likelihood that the person’s conduct will result in harm, (ii) the foreseeable severity of any harm that may result, and (iii) the burden of precautions to eliminate or reduce the risk of harm.
Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
A plaintiff can recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) from a defendant whose tortious conduct placed the plaintiff in harm’s way if the plaintiff can demonstrate that she was within the zone of danger and the threat of physical impact caused emotional distress. Generally, the distress must exhibit some physical symptoms. In virtually all jurisdictions, emotional distress must result from sensory and contemporaneous observance of the accident itself, not the receipt of news relating to the accident. To recover as a bystander, the plaintiff must be closely related to a person injured by the defendant, be present at the scene of the injury, and personally observe or perceive the injury.
