MGMT 211 Lecture 10 Outline of Current Lecture I Negligence a Duty breach causation harm b You have to owe the other party a duty i Usually duty of reasonable care 1 Driving your big truck doesn t allow you to run cars off the road 2 A guy in the middle of the row finishes his test first he can t just hit people with his backpack c Under tort law there IS NOT a duty to go to someone s aid i If you have special life saving skills you are supposed to try to help ii If you are a doctor 1 If there is a wreck on the side of the road and you had nothing to can be sued for rendering help under negligence 2 If you breach the duty of care causing harm to that person 3 Most states have created statutory laws Good Samaritan laws a If you act reasonably you are immune from being sued i Reasonable under the circumstances 1 If a building is on fire a car is on the edge of a cliff d If you do breach the duty of care and cause harm you will pay i Physical damage no emotional damage harm case ii Physical manifestation is a must 1 Yourself property you will get more for bodily damage e Breach of duty has to be there CAUSATION i 2 types of causation must have both 1 Cause in fact if the stage is lined with dominoes the last one falls because the one before it did and so on and so forth a Palsgraff case bought a ticket for a train and went and sat at the platform outside a train is pulling out of a station and 2 guys are running to catch the train railroad employee tries to help them onto a moving train one of the guys dropped a box with fireworks it explodes and causes the ground to shake causes the platform to shake the scales fell on Ms Palsgraff 2 Proximate cause centers around reasonable foreseeability a Railroad employee defense no way that helping a guy on a train would have cause a lady to get hit in the head b Texas you knew or should have known the act would have caused harm you assume risk II III c Assumption of the risk you see are aware of the risk but decide to do the act anyway f Contributory negligence i You may be extremely negligent but if you can prove the other party was negligent too no one recovers from anyone ii Can be harsh iii Defense Last clear chance doctrine 1 Jury decides which party had the last clear chance to avoid the accident but didn t 2 Texas Comparative negligence g Comparative negligence now the majority i If both parties are found negligent ask jury judge to assign degrees of negligence percentages 1 If you are 99 guilty you will not cover anything if you re 1 guilty you will get 99 of your damages h Superseding cause i Breaks the causal connection 1 If you re told that you can leave when the last domino falls and someone goes and knocks it over himself 2 Palsgraff in modern times if someone drops a box of firecrackers there will be no effect still the ground shook causing Ms Palsgraff to get hurt scientists discovered it to be an earthquake Strict Liability a Liability without fault it doesn t matter if you did it intentionally i You are responsible 1 If you keep a wild animal or implode a building 2 Fletcher case concerning a dam a Court said he was responsible since building a dam is an extreme activity that caused significant harm b Limited to abnormally dangerous activities Products liabilities a Started to change in food and drug industry i Spanish American war more casualties due to food served to army 1 If you re sick you can t fight ii The Jungle by Sinclair 1 Expose on the meat packing industry in Chicago b Different cases i McPhearson v Buick Motor Company 1 First time negligence went beyond food 2 If a manufacturer negligently puts a product on the market in a defective condition knowing it will be used without inspection and it goes to the consumer the manufacturer is liable 3 You as a consumer have a right to believe it s going to work 4 Still strongly in place 5 If a manufacturer negligently duty to consumer and breached it causing harm a The manufacturer is held to be an expert at every stage of production 6 Wooden spoke wheel fell apart and caused a crash 7 Buick didn t make the wheel but they put it on their car making them negligent a They have a duty as an expert b They breached their duty for it being in defective condition c It caused the McPhearsons injury 8 All the defenses of a negligent case apply here a If UPS tears up a product it s UPS fault b If you modify or tamper with the product and it causes the problem it s your fault c Assumption of the risk i Buy a new car it comes with a book instruction manual they call it the read me first book if you disregard it that s assumption of the risk ii When you go to McDonald s for coffee you are clearly informed that their coffee is very very hot 1 That is because of the woman who won her lawsuit ii Baxter v Ford Motor Company 1 Expressed warranty a If a manufacturer makes an expressed warranty making promises about the product it has to fulfill those promises b Windshields had to make the glass really thick to keep it from shattering i Overtime liquid will flow bubbles will form yellowing c Ford advertised triple shatterproof glass d In this case you had to prove you relied on the promise i You bought this car for the triple shatterproof glass e Glass shattered and cut up the Baxter family f Manufacturers now won t give you an expressed warranty iii Hennengenson v Bloomfield Motor Company 1 Mrs H was driving her car got in a wreck and became impaled on the dashboard 2 All of the buttons gearshifts were daggers 3 Mrs H sued on an implied warranty of safety a For the kind of money spent on the car it should be safe b Design defects for safety can come in 4 Now overshadowed by strict liabilities in products 5 If you make it and it hurts someone you pay IV a Not rampant not common b Just because you crashed your Ford doesn t make it Ford s fault iv Shopsmith v Yuma 1 Tool that was the size of a piano put a piece of wood in and it became a beautiful leg 2 Defect piece of wood would fly out and hit someone 3 Courts ruled that the company made the product and made good money off of it so they should have to pay v Sindell v Abbott Laboratories 1 DES was a drug …