Torts in a Nutshell
Author:
Kionka, Edward J.
Edition:
6th
Copyright Date:
2015
22 chapters
have results for tort
Chapter 1. Prologue: Origins, Objectives, and Overviews of Tort Liability 46 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Obviously, this does not tell us very much. To say that the breach of a law-imposed duty creates tort liability begs the question. Moreover, not violations of legal duties are torts. This does not even distinguish tort from breach of contract, since in the final analysis the law determines which contractual duties are enforceable. Some have defined “tort” by excluding “mere” breaches of contract, but this glosses over the fact that the breach of a contractual duty under certain circumstances can be the basis for tort liability.
- The third primary function or goal of tort law is to prevent future torts by regulating human behavior. In this respect, the law serves an educational function, and operates prospectively. Theoretically, a tortfeasor held liable for damages will be more careful in the future (specific deterrence), and the general threat of tort liability is an incentive to all to regulate their conduct in accordance with the established standards (general deterrence). To this extent tort law supplements and extends the criminal law; indeed, tort sanctions can often be more potent.
- If there is any such general principle, it has yet to be adopted by Anglo-American courts and legislatures. The common law developed as a system of individual named torts—trespass, deceit, slander, and later assault and battery, conversion, and so on—each with its own more or less unique rules. In fact, until 1859 there was no legal treatise bearing the name “torts.” As yet, except for the tort called “negligence,” there has been little synthesis of the nominate torts into larger categories.
- Yet the tort law of these countries is remarkably similar to ours. The California Civil Code includes some general tort liability provisions (e.g. §§ 1708, 1709, 1714), but the structure and rules of California tort law are indistinguishable in form from those of other states.
- The victim of a tort has sustained certain harm(s) or loss(es) that we will call “costs.” Tort law is predicated on the idea that all these costs—tangible and intangible—can be measured in money. The basic (and usually exclusive) tort remedy is to require the tortfeasor to pay the victim the sum of these costs as “compensatory damages.”
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Chapter 6. Liability for Intentional Misconduct 44 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Often the same act is both a tort and a crime. This is especially true with respect to the intentional torts. But despite their common origins, tort and criminal law rules are now more different than similar, and analogies and comparisons between torts and crimes of the same name or having similar bases in conduct should be made only with the greatest caution.
- Both a civil tort action and a criminal prosecution may be brought for the same wrongful conduct. The remedies are concurrent, and either a successful or unsuccessful result in one is ordinarily not a bar to the other. But judgment-proof persons often commit the most common intentional torts; intentional torts are usually uninsured and in most cases uninsurable; and vicarious liability for intentional torts is limited. Thus, intentional tort litigation is of relatively less significance in the day-to-day work of lawyers and courts. Nevertheless, in many circumstances it is a valuable remedy.
- Claims for IIED may also overlap with other intentional torts, such as assault, battery, or false imprisonment, which also allow compensation for emotional distress. Normally, P should be entitled to elect her remedy, choosing whichever tort is most advantageous. Whether she should be permitted to sue for IIED if the statute of limitations has run on the other, overlapping tort is an open question.
- Traditionally, the intentional torts are those named and discussed in the sections which follow. However, there has come to be recognized a general principle of intentional tort liability, analogous to the general principle of negligence liability (see § 4–1), sometimes called “prima facie tort,” which may be invoked when no particular intentional tort applies. See, e.g.,
- Thus, certainty of the harmful consequences is the basis on which we distinguish intentional torts from negligent or reckless (“willful and wanton”) ones. If the result is intended or virtually certain to occur, the tort is intentional. R.3d Liability for Physical & Emotional Harm § 1 states the usual rule:
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Chapter 8. Special Liability Rules for Particular Activities and Parties 98 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability.
- An employer’s vicarious liability includes torts negligently or recklessly committed. It even extends to intentional torts committed in the scope of the employment and at least in part in furtherance of the employer’s business. For example, a bill collector who commits assault, battery, false imprisonment, or intentionally inflicts emotional distress or maliciously prosecutes or defames the plaintiff in an effort to extract payment of a bill subjects his employer to liability for the intentional tort. Going a step further, some courts (a growing minority) will visit vicarious liability on an employer for intentional torts committed during a fight that ensued when the employee lost his temper during an argument that arose out of the employment. And it is generally agreed that where there is some special relationship between plaintiff and the employer such that the employer owes plaintiff a duty of protection (such as in the case of a carrier, ...his employee’s intentional tort...
- The trend of U.S. tort law during the twentieth century was to expand the scope of potential tort liability, especially as to business and property owners, mainly by: (1) abolishing duty limitations and immunities in negligence cases and moving toward a general duty of ordinary care under the circumstances for all activities; (2) abolishing special limitations on the class of persons to whom defendant’s duty is owed (i.e., privity limitations) and applying ordinary rules of proximate cause to all; (3) making sellers of products strictly liable in tort for product defects; and (4) creating new liability rules by statute (e.g., workers’ compensation, F.E.L.A., and auto compensation acts). In recent decades, however, that expansion has slowed, ceased, or, in some cases, reversed, apparently because courts (and occasionally legislatures) have concluded that we have reached a point of equilibrium—an appropriate balance between compensating deserving tort victims and making the tort...
- Tort liability
- The Restatement (Third) of Torts.
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Chapter 5. Defenses to Negligence and Other Liability 15 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Reckless (“willful and wanton”) conduct and intentional torts.
- In theory, the allocation of fault might include a defendant or even a non-party whose tort was intentional, perhaps even a criminal act. This means that if P’s harm was caused in part by an intentional tortfeasor, that tortfeasor may be assigned the major share of the overall fault, and if that tortfeasor is uncollectible, the collectible part of P’s judgment may be a fraction of his damages as determined by the trier of fact, if the remaining defendant or defendants are only severally liable. For this reason, the Restatement provides: “A person who is liable to another based on a failure to protect the other from the specific risk of an intentional tort is jointly and severally liable for the share of comparative responsibility assigned to the intentional tortfeasor in addition to the share of comparative responsibility assigned to person.” R.3d Apportionment of Liability § 14. Of course, whether this rule is available will depend on the law of each comparative negligence...
- Just as in all other areas of the law, tort law imposes time limits on bringing claims. The purposes of these limits are to protect defendants (1) from perpetual exposure to potential liability—to permit defendants (and their insurers) to “close the books” at a fixed time, and (2) from the evidentiary problems of defending against stale claims.
- The statutory period of time in which a tort action can be filed generally starts to “run” when the cause of action accrues. Ordinarily, this is at the time of the injury. When the injury is caused by a single traumatic event, such as an accident, the statute begins to run on that date, whether or not the plaintiff knows that his injury was caused by tortious conduct.
- The modified form of comparative fault, representing a partial retention of contributory negligence, is not logically defensible, but probably reflects a compromise view that a plaintiff who is equally or largely responsible for his own injury is unworthy of compensation. (South Dakota has a different standard, allowing and apportioning recovery when plaintiff’s negligence is “slight.”) The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Apportionment of Liability § 7 advocates the pure form of comparative fault.
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Chapter 11. Immunities 36 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Various justifications, all of them rather weak, have been advanced for adhering to the doctrine: there should be no liability for negligence in the performance of a duty imposed by law; a tort cannot be committed by an entire people; whatever the state does must ipso facto be lawful; a government employee who commits a tort must thereby be acting outside the scope of his authority and employment; tort compensation is not a proper use of public funds; tort liability would cause inconvenience and embarrassment to the government; and, occasionally, just “public policy.” The most likely reason for its persistence is a fear that governmental tort liability would precipitate a large scale milking of the public treasury and fiscally disastrous consequences—a fear that is increasingly seen as unwarranted and outweighed by the injustice of immunity. Thus, all states have now consented (usually by statute or constitutional provision) to allow tort claims in some form and to a greater or...
- FTCA claims must first be submitted to the appropriate federal agency. If denied, the claim may then be brought in federal court, but the substantive law that governs is the tort law of the state in which the alleged tort occurred. 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1). FTCA claims are tried without a jury.
- The most likely reason for the immunity is that it was thought to further a public policy that strongly favors and supports charitable enterprises, whose beneficent work might be hampered if their assets must be used to pay tort claims. But first legal writers and then the courts accepted the now-prevailing view that tort liability is a legitimate expense of any enterprise, however benevolent and worthy, and the public policy favoring charity is outweighed by the injustice of tort immunity, especially now that liability insurance has reduced the burden to manageable levels.
- Thus, the trend has been to abolish this immunity; the majority of states have done away with it entirely. The Restatement (Second) rejects it (§ 895F). And many of the remaining states (a few of which have statutes expressly preserving it) recognize exceptions, as where the marriage has been terminated (by death or divorce) or where the tort occurred prior to the marriage. Most jurisdictions allow actions for intentional torts. And almost all courts now hold that plaintiff may sue one who is vicariously liable for his spouse’s tort, even though his spouse is personally immune.
- The sovereign immunity concept has dual aspects, and this duality has caused controversy and confusion. One aspect is procedural, the other substantive. In its original form, under English common law, the rule was fundamentally procedural. A lawsuit could not be brought against the Crown (the sovereign) in the Crown’s own courts without its consent. (This disability would, of course, apply not merely to tort actions but to all others as well.) But the doctrine eventually came to be regarded as also embodying a rule of immunity from tort liability, as reflected in the oft-quoted phrase “The King can do no wrong,” which was usually interpreted as meaning that the sovereign was incapable of committing a tort.
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Chapter 12. Survival and Wrongful Death 15 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The statutes are of two types. In some, either all tort actions or all tort actions with certain listed exceptions survive. In others, only certain named actions survive. This creates problems of construction, since frequently the statute lists categories such as “injury to persons or property” instead of the names of particular torts.
- Where defendant’s tort proximately causes fatal injuries to another, decedent’s family usually sustains a measurable loss. During some periods of the development of the common law, this loss was at least partly compensated, usually in the same action in which the crown punished defendant for the killing. There is some evidence of compensation for wrongful death in the earliest U.S. tort law.
- Under most statutes, any tort theory that would have supported a personal injury action will support an action for wrongful death—an intentional tort, reckless or negligent behavior, strict liability (product or otherwise).
- § 12–1. SURVIVAL OF TORT ACTIONS
- At common law, all causes of action for personal torts abated with the death of either the tortfeasor or the person injured, regardless of the cause of death. “Actio personalis moritur cum persona.” Except as modified by statute, that remains the general rule today.
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Explanatory Notes 7 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Work continues on additional volumes in the Restatement (Third) series—as of this writing, Restatement (Third) Of Torts: Liability for Economic Harm, and Restatement (Third) Of Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons, are in process. Parts of the “Economic Harm” Restatement have been approved by ALI, but the official text has not yet been published.
- For the record, it should be noted that there is also a Restatement (Third): Unfair Competition (1995), that contains some topics that fall under the torts umbrella. This Restatement has superseded certain sections of the Restatement (Second) of Torts. However, those topics are mostly beyond the scope of the first-year law school torts course.
- Restatement of Torts.
- The Restatement (Second) is now gradually being superseded by the Restatement: Third. The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability (1998), and the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Apportionment of Liability (2000), were followed by a two-volume set, the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm. Volume
- Texts and articles are cited only occasionally. In its day, the most authoritative and useful text was the Hornbook originally authored by the late Dean William L. Prosser, Prosser & Keeton, The Law of Torts (5th ed. 1984), fifth edition by W. Page Keeton, Dan B. Dobbs, Robert E. Keeton, and David G. Owen. For convenience, it is cited as “Prosser.” Although it remains a valuable reference, the Prosser Hornbook has not been updated since a 1988 supplement was released. The current Torts Hornbook is Dan B. Dobbs, The Law of Torts (2000), which is an excellent successor to Prosser.
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Chapter 14. Privacy 9 results (showing 5 best matches)
- An 1890 Harvard Law Review article by Warren and Brandeis stimulated the development of the modern tort action for invasion of privacy. According to the conventional analysis, privacy tort law encompasses four distinct wrongs (R.2d § 652A):
- Is this tort necessary?
- Due to the overlap with defamation, a few jurisdictions have rejected this particular tort action altogether as creating, in effect, an unwarranted extension of defamation liability. See, e.g., , 997 So. 2d 1098 (Fla. 2008). And some courts, while recognizing this tort, apply common law or statutory defamation defenses and limitations to false light actions.
- Appropriation—often called “commercial appropriation”—differs from the other privacy torts, which protect one’s right to be free from unreasonable or unconscionable intrusion or publicity. In contrast, the tort law of appropriation (which overlaps with copyright and other intellectual property rights) primarily protects the right of “publicity”—that is, the right to prevent others from profiting commercially from the use of one’s name, likeness, or other aspects of one’s “identity.” Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition § 46. However, in some cases it may also protect against the unprivileged and unpermitted appropriation of one’s name or identity for certain noncommercial purposes, such as signing one’s name to a petition.
- The tort is complete when the intrusion occurs. No publication or publicity of the information is required. The First Amendment may protect newsgathering activities when the privacy claim is based on publication of the information, but the mere fact that the defendant is acting for the news media does not create a privilege to trespass or invade P’s privacy.
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Chapter 10. Tort and Contract 17 results (showing 5 best matches)
- When one party to a contract fails to render the agreed performance, or the performance is deficient, the other party may not only lose the benefit of his bargain, but may also suffer other kinds of injury, including physical and pecuniary harm, as a direct result. Assuming the breach to have been intentional, reckless or negligent, may the party wronged elect to sue in tort, or is he confined to his action for breach of contract? For a variety of reasons, plaintiff will usually prefer to sue in tort if he can. For example, typically the tort measure of damages will be more favorable to him.
- When the common law first began to allow a tort action for breach of an undertaking, it was against those engaged in the common or public callings—common carriers, innkeepers, public warehousemen, and other public servants and utilities. It was a form of tort liability, and it was soon extended to nonperformance and even to defendant’s refusal to enter into a contract at all. Gradually this evolved into the action of assumpsit, a contract action in its later stages, which became the principal remedy for breach of any contract. But the original principle has been carried forward in tort law, and such defendants remain liable in tort for nonperformance.
- Election: Tort or contract action.
- Just as there is no tort liability between the parties for harm caused by the nonperformance of a contract, absent some recognized exception, so there is generally no tort liability to a nonparty injured thereby. Thus, one who is hired to repair an auto but never even begins performance is not liable to a third person injured by the defect.
- For reasons mainly historical, but also because of a fear of unwarranted extensions of liability, the general rule is that where defendant’s duty arises because of a contractual relationship between the parties, he is not liable in tort for damage caused by his breach of that contract where the breach consists of his failure to commence performance at all. But once having begun to perform, he may be liable in tort for his intentional, reckless, or negligent misperformance, whether consisting of acts or omissions to act, if that negligence results in physical harm or property damage. For example, one who contracts with plaintiff to cut down a tree on his property will not be liable
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Chapter 15. Misrepresentation and Nondisclosure 24 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Some sort of misrepresentation is often an element of many different torts. An untrue assertion may be an integral part of some other intentional tort, such as battery, false imprisonment, conversion, or intentional infliction of emotional distress. It is the essence of defamation and the tort of injurious falsehood. Malicious prosecution and interference with contractual relations often involve a misrepresentation. There are many other examples. We are not concerned with such misrepresentations in this chapter.
- It is, of course, everywhere agreed that defendant will be liable in a tort action of deceit when all of the elements listed above are present. In such cases, deceit is an intentional tort, analogous to those discussed in Chapter 6.
- For the most part, the tort action of deceit or misrepresentation discussed here is limited to cases involving some business or financial transaction between the parties in which one of them has sustained a pecuniary loss. While perhaps there is no reason why the same or similar principles could not be applied in noncommercial situations, or to damages for physical harm (R.2d §§ 310, 311) there has been little occasion for doing so. The other nominate tort actions generally have provided adequate remedies.
- One of the most important and controversial issues in this branch of tort law has been whether plaintiff is always required to prove scienter in order to maintain a tort action for deceit, or whether defendant may be liable where he was merely negligently or even innocently ignorant of the falsity of his statement. Let us first, then, consider this question. Other issues concerning the remaining elements of the cause of action will be taken up in succeeding sections.
- Here, also, the case law allowing recovery in tort for an innocent misrepresentation appears inconclusive on the issue of damages. The Restatement confines the damages in these cases to plaintiff’s out-of-pocket loss, thus excluding both the benefit of the promised bargain and consequential damages and creating what amounts to a restitutionary remedy in tort law clothing. R.2d § 552C.
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Chapter 9. Damages for Physical Harm 35 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Statutes often cap damages in tort cases against governmental units, or in certain statutory tort actions or compensation systems.
- It is common for a plaintiff who has suffered physical harm to claim against two or more tortfeasors, usually simultaneously. This was not always so. Recall that earlier rules of tort law were oriented toward placing responsibility on a single wrongdoer. And under older rules of procedure, joinder of more than one defendant in a single tort action was possible only where all such defendants acted in concert in committing the tort, either directly (where each did a tortious act pursuant to a common plan) or where one was vicariously responsible for the tortious act of another under principles of conspiracy or joint enterprise such that a mutual agency existed.
- If plaintiff establishes defendant’s liability for some tort but is unable to prove any actual damages, nominal damages may be awarded. R.2d § 907. As the name implies, they are damages in name only, usually one cent or six cents or one dollar. Such awards are largely confined to the intentional torts (e.g., trespass to land) where actual damages need not be alleged or proved. Occasionally they may be given in other cases where plaintiff proves that he sustained some actual damage but is unable to establish the amount.
- As a general proposition, when plaintiff proves a compensable injury to his person, he may recover for all adverse physical and mental consequences of that injury. R.2d § 924. While the specific elements of damage for which recovery may be had vary somewhat among the torts, and will differ a little from one jurisdiction to the next even for a particular tort, the following types of harms are commonly compensable.
- When defendant’s tort injures P’s person or property, P’s usual remedy is compensatory money damages. In almost all cases, this will also be his only remedy.
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Chapter 2. Cause in Fact 4 results
- The most basic element of any tort cause of action is some causal connection between the act or omission of the tortfeasor and plaintiff’s injury. Yet the application of this simple concept has proved one of the most troublesome tasks in all of tort law. No other topic has occasioned so much controversy and confusion among both courts and legal scholars.
- In real life, of course, every occurrence has many causative antecedents. Recognizing this, the test for tort liability is whether the cause for which defendant was responsible was a
- Earlier versions of the Restatement, and many courts, added a second element: that D’s tortious conduct was a “substantial factor” (or sometimes “a material element [and] [or] a substantial factor”) in bringing about P’s injury. See, e.g., R.2d §§ 431, 432. Increasingly, this factor has been discredited. Courts and torts scholars have recognized that this factor is more appropriate to scope of liability (“proximate cause”) questions. Confusion between factual cause and proximate cause has been the norm, both in the courts and in the earlier Restatements, which conflated the two concepts. In addition, the advent of comparative fault has eliminated the need to screen out factual causes that are insubstantial. For an excellent discussion of this issue, see R.3d Liability for Physical & Emotional Harm § 26, cmt.
- Causation, Valuation and Chance in Personal Injury Torts Involving Pre-existing Conditions and Future Consequences
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Chapter 3. Strict Liability 12 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Federal tort claims.
- The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Apportionment of Liability, § 8, and Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical & Emotional Harm § 25, provide that in all cases involving physical injury, the fact finder should assign shares of responsibility to each party, regardless of the legal theory of liability. This means that shares of fault can be assigned to a negligent plaintiff even if the defendant’s liability is strict. Nevertheless, while it is true that in most cases, plaintiff’s foolishness in encountering a known risk is properly characterized as mere negligence, certain cases may remain where the plaintiff’s conduct may evidence his implied consent to subject himself to the risk and thereby relieve the defendant of liability entirely. The Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical & Emotional Harm § 24(a) provides that if a person suffers physical harm as a result of making contact with or coming into proximity to the defendant’s animal or abnormally...
- Modern tort law classifies the cases involving physical harm to persons and property according to the degree of fault inherent in the tortious conduct: intentional; negligent; reckless or “willful and wanton” misconduct; and a category called “strict liability,” “absolute liability,” or “liability without fault.”
- Under some case law, strict liability for trespassing barnyard animals did not extend to any personal injury they might cause. But the new Restatement (Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical & Emotional Harm § 21) extends liability for such trespassing animals to include any injury that is a characteristic of such intrusion, which may include personal injuries.
- The new Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical & Emotional Harm § 20, adopts an even simpler rule:
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Chapter 7. Defenses to Liability for Intentional Misconduct 15 results (showing 5 best matches)
- Strictly speaking, consent is technically not a privilege in the case of the intentional torts that are invasions of plaintiff’s interests in his person (assault, battery, false imprisonment) as opposed to his property interests, since lack of consent is an element of the tort and ordinarily plaintiff must establish it as a part of his prima facie case. However, the consent rules are similar as to all torts and for convenience are customarily treated as part of the law of privilege.
- Consent is a defense to virtually any tort. The law ordinarily has no interest in compensating one who validly, knowingly and freely consents in advance to the invasion of the interest that the law would otherwise have protected. In the law of negligence and strict liability, consent goes by the name “assumption of risk,” and a separate body of law has grown up around that concept which is described elsewhere (§ 5–4). While consent will be treated here in relation to the intentional torts, similar or analogous rules apply in other areas of tort law.
- “Privilege” is the general term applied to certain rules of law by which particular circumstances justify conduct that otherwise would be tortious, and thereby defeat the tort liability (or defense) which, in the absence of such circumstances, ordinarily would follow from that conduct. In other words, even if all of the facts necessary to a prima facie case of tort liability can be proved, there are additional facts present sufficient to establish some privilege, and therefore defendant has committed no tort. Privileges thus differ from other defenses, such as contributory negligence, which operate to reduce or bar plaintiff’s recovery but do not negate the tortious nature of defendant’s conduct. Conversely, a
- Consent is not effective if it is given under duress, which of course includes actual physical force, but it is not entirely clear what kinds of threats are sufficient. Threats of immediate harm directed against plaintiff, his family, or his valuable property are usually enough, depending upon the nature of the tort. But it has been held that threats of future harm, such as arrest, or “economic” duress such as loss of employment, do not render the consent ineffective (although some other tort may have been committed).
- The common law developed a fiction that where an act or series of acts was properly commenced under authority of law, and subsequently that authority was exceeded and a tort thereby committed, defendant’s abuse of his authority “related back” and he was deemed to be a wrongdoer, without privilege, from the very beginning—ab initio. The result was that he was liable not merely for the subsequent tort, but as though his entire course of conduct, including the initial entry, seizure or arrest, had been tortious.
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Chapter 4. Liability for Negligent Conduct 25 results (showing 5 best matches)
- In tort law, the term “negligence” is used in at least two senses. First, it is the name of a tort cause of action, notable for its breadth. It is the closest thing there is to a general principle of tort liability. As a general rule, all persons are under a duty to conduct themselves in all of their diverse activities so as not to create unreasonable risks of physical harm to others. In certain cases, as will be noted later, this duty is limited or denied, but unless such a special exception exists, one may be held liable for the consequences of his negligent conduct, at least if it causes physical harm.
- Note that professional rescuers are often treated differently under what is known as the “firefighters rule”—a professional rescuer (policemen, firemen, other emergency responders) cannot sue D in tort if D’s only tort was creating the risk that resulted in the occasion for the response, and sometimes also risks associated with the condition of the premises.
- Second, “negligence” is the name of that form of wrongful conduct which is an element of various tort causes of action (or defenses), including the action called “negligence.” Thus, the components of the cause of action for negligence are:
- Tort liability for physical harm is founded upon defendant’s knowledge (actual or constructive) of the risk and of some degree of probability that it will be realized (harm to the plaintiff). In negligence (as distinguished from intentional torts), the actor does not desire the injurious consequences of his conduct; he does not know that they are substantially certain to occur, nor believe that they will. There is merely a risk of such consequences sufficiently great that the ordinarily prudent person will anticipate them and guard against them. Thus, the normal actor (plaintiff or defendant) is charged with his
- Tort law applies the statutory age of majority (18) for purposes of these rules and all those this age or above will be held to adult standards of conduct.
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Preface 7 results (showing 5 best matches)
- The law student would be well-advised to base his or her study of tort law primarily on other sources. There is no substitute for a careful analysis of casebook materials for a more thorough treatment and for a necessary perspective of tort law in action. (2008), and also the Restatement (Second) and the Restatement (Third) of Torts. Reference to other sources available in the law library or online is sometimes necessary in areas where enlightenment seems slow to come. Nevertheless, it is my firm belief that law students (as all of us are) must have a clear view of the forest before we can truly understand and appreciate the various trees. I hope that this book will help to provide that overview, a solid structural framework of concepts to which the elaborations and refinements of ever more specific rules can be attached. May it serve as an entree into the law’s proverbial seamless web.
- On the other hand, I have covered some subjects not normally included in basic torts texts and courses (see, e.g., Chapter 1 and §§ 8–14, 8–15, 8–21, and 8–22) because I believe that they are important to an accurate overview.
- I am deeply grateful to all those—students, lawyers, and legal scholars—who have helped me learn about tort law and its processes. Deepest thanks also to my colleagues, friends, and family who have long supported me in this project—especially Terri, my spouse, whose support and understanding never wane. And thanks, Pete, for your invaluable help editing the first edition.
- Portions of the Restatement of the Law of Torts are reprinted with the permission of the American Law Institute.
- This book, like all others in the Nutshell series, is intended for anyone seeking a concise exposition or review of the basic principles of American law. Its main value, however, will probably be to first-year law students taking the course in torts, who are struggling to get a glimpse of the elusive “big picture” of which my former dean and colleague John Cribbet of the University of Illinois College of Law famously spoke.
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Outline 6 results (showing 5 best matches)
Chapter 13. Defamation 2 results
- Defamation law encompasses two torts, libel and slander. In general, libel is a written defamatory communication; slander is an oral one. In the next section we will discuss the differences between the two, but here we examine the common elements and principles.
- Defamation is an invasion of one’s interest in his good reputation and good name. Like the other torts in this Part VI, the injury is to a “relational” interest, in this case plaintiff’s relationship with others in the community as it is affected by others’ opinions about him. Thus, a defamatory statement must be communicated to third persons; if communicated only to the plaintiff it might constitute intentional infliction of emotional distress, but it is not an actionable defamation.
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- Publication Date: July 28th, 2015
- ISBN: 9781628105513
- Subject: Torts
- Series: Nutshells
- Type: Overviews
- Description: A clear, concise, current, and authoritative explanation of all of the most important U.S. tort law doctrines, including those covered in first-year torts courses in law schools. Coverage includes tort law origins and objectives; causation; strict liability; negligence liability and defenses; intentional tort liability and defenses; special liability rules (premises liability, products liability, employers, etc.); damages; tort and contract; immunities; wrongful death and survival; defamation; privacy; misrepresentation.