Chapter 7 Negligence and Strict Liability Negligence Elements of a negligence claim are o That the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff o That the defendant committed a breach of this duty o That this breach was the actual and proximate cause of injury experienced by the plaintiff In order to win a negligence case the plaintiff must prove each of these three elements Duty and Beach of Duty Duty of Reasonable Care As a general rule negligence law contemplates that each person must act as a reasonable person of ordinary prudence would have acted under the same or similar circumstances Broad range of applications in everyday personal life o Ex a person s negligent driving of a car an employer s negligent hiring of a certain employee an accountant s attorney s physician s negligent performance of professional obligations Was the Duty Owed Courts typically hold that the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care if the plaintiff was among those who would foreseeably be at risk of harm stemming from the defendant s activist or conduct or if a special relationship logically calling for such a duty existed between the parties If the court concludes that the defendant did not owe the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care the plaintiff s negligence claim is dismissed Was the Duty Breached Use the reasonable person test o Objective compares the defendant s actions with those that a hypothetical person with ordinary prudence and sensibilities would have taken not taken under the circumstances also focuses on the defendant s behavior rather than on the defendant s subjective mental state o Flexible courts consider all of the relevant facts and circumstances the test allows courts to tailor their decisions to the facts of the particular case Courts consider and balance various factors when applying the reasonable person test o Reasonable foreseeability of harm Negligence law does not require that we protect others against all foreseeable risks of harm risk created by the defendant s conduct need only be an unreasonable one In determining reasonableness of risks courts consider such factors as o The seriousness or magnitude of the foreseeable harm o The social utility of the defendant s conduct o The ease or difficulty of avoiding the risk o The personal characteristics of the defendant Age intelligence experience disabled or not mental deficiencies ordinarily do not relieve a person from the duty to conform to the usual reasonable person standard also true of voluntary and negligent intoxication o Context in which the defendant acted Ex someone making split second decisions in an emergency vs someone who has time to think and take deliberate action Special Duties In some situations courts have fashioned particular negligence duties to supplement the reasonable person standard o Ex professions doctors lawyers accountants generally must exercise the knowledge skill and care ordinarily possessed and employed by members of the profession o Common carriers and innkeepers are held to an extremely high duty of care when they are sued for damaging or losing their customer s property Duties to Persons on Property Another set of special duties from possessors of real estate to those who enter that Negligence cases that address these duties are often called premises liability cases property 3 classifications o Invitees Two general types Business visitor o Invited to enter the property for a purpose connected with the possessor s business o Ex customers delivery persons Public invites public o Invited to enter the property that is held open to the o Ex persons using gov or municipal facilities such as parks swimming pools and public offices attendees of free public lectures and church services people responding to advertisements that something will be given away o Entry must be for the purpose for which the property is held open A possessor of property must exercise reasonable care for the safety of his invitees must take appropriate steps to protect an invitee against dangerous on premises conditions that he knows about or reasonably should discover and that an invitee is unlikely to discover o Licensees Enters a property for their own purposes however with the possessor s consent Ex door to door salespeople solicitors of money for charity persons taking a shortcut across the property Consent to enter the property is often implied The possessor usually is obligated only to warn licensees of dangerous on premises conditions that they are unlikely to discover o Trespassers Trespasser enters the land without its possessor s consent and without any other privilege A possessor of land owed trespassers no duty to exercise reasonable care for their safety instead there was only a duty not to willfully and wantonly injure trespassers once their presence was known Negligence Per Se Doctrine which states the defendant s violation of such laws may create a breach of duty and may allow the plaintiff to win the case if the plaintiff o Was within the class of persons intended to be protected by the statue or o Suffered harm of a sort that the statue or other law was intended to protect Proof that the defendant breached a duty does not guarantee that the plaintiff will Plaintiff must also prove that the defendant s breach caused her to experience other law and against Causation of Injury win a negligence case injury Types of Injury and Damages Personal injury o Physical bodily injury Property damage Economic loss The Causation Link injury o Harm to the plaintiff s real estate or personal property items o Includes out of pocket expenses lost profits No liability for negligence until a causation link is established between breach and The causation question involves 3 issues o Was the breach an actual cause of the injury o Was the breach a proximate cause of the injury o What was the effect of any intervening cause arising after the breach and helping to cause the injury Both actual and proximate cause are necessary for a negligence recovery Actual Cause To determine the existence of actual cause courts often employ a but for test Test provides that the defendant s conduct is the actual cause of the plaintiff s injury when the plaintiff would not have been hurt but for the defendant s breach of duty Proximate Cause Sometimes more difficult than proving actual cause Proximate cause concerns the required degree of proximity or closeness between the defendant s breach and the injury it actually caused o
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