1. 1 Acme Electronics: Student Coaching Slides

2. 2 Question 1: Negligence Define Prima Facie Case – Plaintiff’s Burden Defenses – Defendant’s Burden

3. 3 Prima Facie Case Conduct Duty Breach of Duty Actual (direct) Cause Proximate (legal) Cause Damage

4. 4 Conduct What Did Acme Do or Fail to Do in This Case? Affirmative Action Omission – Failure to Act

5. 5 Duty The Concept of Duty Has Two Parts: What is the Duty? –Standard of Care: To Act as a Reasonable Person Can a Statute set the Standard of Care? (Library Case) To Whom is the Duty Owed? –Foreseeable Plaintiff – Defendant Owes a Duty to Plaintiffs Who the Defendant can Foresee Will be Injured as a Result of the Defendant’s Conduct. –Can a Statute Identify the Person or Persons to Whom the Defendant Owes a Duty? (Library Case)

6. 6 Breach of Duty Calculus of the Risk 1) Likelihood of Harm 2) Seriousness of Harm vs. 3) Cost of Prevention and/or 4) Utility of the Activity Violation of a Statute Is the Violation of a Statute Considered to be a Breach of Duty? (Library Case)

7. 7 Negligence Per Se Define Relation to the Prima Facie Case of Negligence –Any Light Shed on This by Library Case(s)?

8. 8 Actual Causation Plaintiff Must Connect Conduct to the Loss –“But for” Defendant’s Conduct Plaintiff Would not Have Suffered the Loss. Easy, Difficult, or Impossible Burden in this Case? Why or Why Not? Any Solution to the Dilemma? (Library Case)

9. 9 Proximate (Legal) Causation Policy Determination –Should Defendant Really be Responsible for Damages Actually Caused? –Natural and Probable Consequences –Did Plaintiff’s Loss Come About as a Result of a String of Weird Unforeseeable Events?

10. 10 Damages Damages Suffered in this Case –Compensatory Define/Purpose –Out of Pocket? –Cost to Reconstruct Lost Files? –Punitive Damages? Define/Purpose Intentional Tort vs. Negligence

11. 11 Question 2: Defenses Contributory Negligence –Complete Bar to Recovery Library? Comparative Negligence –Pure vs. Mixed Library?

12. 12 Question 3: Sample of 600 Past Negligence Cases Use Normal Approximation to Binomial Distribution Check Statistics Texts for Formulas Confidence Interval – Confidence is Probability True Percent is Contained in Interval

13. 13 Question 4: Expected Value Assume No Punitive Award Review of Expected Value: –Weighted Average of a Set of Values Where the Weights are the Probabilities of Values –Sum of Probabilities is One, Since All Possible Events Should be Considered –If All the Values are Costs, Expected Value Can be Called Expected Cost

14. 14 Question 5 The Expected Value Could be Used as the Basis for a Settlement Ethical Issues? Strategy? Question Open Ended