Chapter 7 Negligence and Strict Liability Due to devastating amount of injuries and harm to property that were mostly unintended that happened during the Industrial Revolution courts created the law of negligence Negligence The elements of a negligence claim are 1 the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff 2 the defendant committed a breach of this duty 3 this breach was the actual and proximate cause of injury experience by the plaintiff o To win a case the plaintiff must prove each of these elements Duty and Breach of Duty Duty of Reasonable Care o Negligence law contemplates that each person must act as a reasonable person of ordinary prudence would have acted under the similar circumstances o The duty to exercise reasonable care serves as the relevant duty for purposes of a negligence claim first element o The second element requires the plaintiff to establish that the defendant failed to act as a reasonable person would have acted Was the Duty Owed o The court need to first determine whether the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care If the plaintiff was at risk of harm or injury stemming from the defendant s conduct then the courts hold that the defendant did owe the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care Was the Duty Breached After determining if the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care then it is time to find out whether the defendant satisfied or instead breached that duty of reasonable care To determine this we apply the reasonable person test One factor is the reasonable foreseeability of harm EX Donald has a blackout to which a doctor had warned him he was subject to He hit Peter A reasonable person who have not driven due to that pertinent information so he breached a duty to Peter On the other hand if the loss of awareness was cause because the car s headlights stopped working all of a sudden then he was not able to foresee that factor that caused harm to Peter For negligence law to work the defendant s conduct must have been an unreasonable one o Courts consider other factors besides the foreseeability of harm One factor is the seriousness of magnitude of the foreseeable harm As the seriousness of the harm increases so does the need to take action to avoid it Another factor is the social utility of the defendant s conduct The more valuable the conduct the less likely that it will be regarded as a breach of duty Negligence law is also sensitive to the context of the situation in which the defendant acted o EX someone confronted in an emergency situation requires rapid decision making whereas someone in a calm circumstance need calm reflection Currie v Chevron U S A Inc 11th Circuit 2008 Antoine and Anjail muhammad two women had a fiery argument They parked their car across the street and brought their argument to a Chevron gas station Pamela Robinson a bystander went into the store to tell the clerk that he should call the police Without looking the store clerk authorizes Anjail to use the gas pump there was no car and Anjail spews gas on Antoine Anjail goes to her car grabs a lighter and sets Antoine on fire causing her to die from severe burns Tracye Currie the mother of the dead sues Chevron on the theory that Chevron negligently caused the death DECISION Chevron argued that there was no foreseeable risk of harm In cross examination Dr Erickson stated that the clerk saw there was something going on outside and that Antoine and Anjail did not have a car present So the court sided with Currie and returned a 3 5 million verdict But after more examination they found that Antoine s own negligence accounted for 25 of the reason of her death and 3 5 million was brought down to 2 625 000 Special Duties o Courts have created special duties for some professions to supplement the general reasonable person standard Ex Doctors and lawyers are required to use their knowledge skill and care Innkeepers must exercise extreme caution to protect their customers against personal injury Duties to Persons on Property Land owners also have special duties to those who enter the property Invitees The possessor of property must exercise reasonable care to protect an invitee against dangerous on premise conditions that he knows about reasonably discover and that the invitee is unlikely to know about ex customers delivery people church attendees government officials o Licensees A licensee enters property for her own purposes but with the consent of the owner The possessor usually is obligated only to warn licensees of dangerous on premises conditions that they are unlikely to discover Negligence Per Se ex Door to door salespeople charity people social guests o Trespassers A possessor of land owes no duty of protection to them but cannot willfully injure said trespassers Under the doctrine of negligence per se the defendant s violation of such laws may create a breach of duty and may allows the plaintiff to win the case if the plaintiff o o 1 was within the class of persons intended to be protected by the law 2 suffered harm of a sort that the law was intended to protect against Causation of Injury In order to win a negligence case the plaintiff must prove that the defendant s breach caused her to experience injury Types of Injury and Damages o Personal injury or physical injury to a plaintiff s body is the most common injury in negligence cases Plaintiffs who win these cases receive compensatory damages damages that include payment for medical bills but also for pain and suffering Property damage or harm to the plaintiff s real estate or a person property items such as a car is another recognized injury for which the plaintiff receives compensatory damages The Causation Link Even if the defendant has breached a duty and the plaintiff has suffered injury there is no liability for negligence without the necessary causation link between breach and injury To determine the existence of actual cause courts employ a but Actual Cause for test This test provides the defendant s conduct is the actual cause of the plaintiff s injury when the plaintiff would not have been hurt for the defendant s breach of duty Proximate Cause The plaintiff who proves actual cause must also prove a proximate cause a task that sometimes is more difficult Proximate cause arises because it may seem unfair for a defendant to be liable for so much injuries Courts say that a negligent defendant is only liable for the proximate results of the breach it concerns the required degree of