Chapter 20

Conduct that falls below the standard established by law for protecting others against unreasonable risks of harm Surgeon forgets to remove clamp from patient during surgery Loaded rifle left on the floor where a child finds it Construction worker forgets to replace manhole cover

1. Duty: A legal obligation The defendant owed a duty or care to the plaintiff 2. Breach of Duty The defendant’s conduct violated that duty 3. Causation The defendant’s conduct caused the plaintiff’s harm 4. Damages The plaintiff suffered actual injuries or losses All elements must be proven or the plaintiff will not prevail in a civil case

A drug company markets a medication without conducting proper testing. A woman develops a serious side-effect from taking it Woman would have to prove that the company had a duty of care to its customer to test it. The company breached this duty through its failure to do so. The breach resulted in a defective product that caused serious damage to her health.

Negligence law is concerned with compensating victims who are harmed by a wrongdoers action or inaction that breaches or violates the standard of “reasonable care”

Everyone has a duty toward everyone else in society: the duty to act reasonably A Reasonable person must: Consider how likely a certain harm is to occur How serious the harm would be if it did occur The burden involved in avoiding the harm The likelihood and seriousness of the harm are balanced against the burden of avoiding the harm

The reason an event occurs Produces the effect Two separate issues in Causation 1. Cause in Fact: if the harm would not have occurred without the wrongful act The act is the cause in fact 2. Proximate Cause: there must be a close connection between the wrongful act and harm caused There must be a close connection between the wrongful act and the harm caused Foreseeable harm Injury a person can reasonably predict

A car you are driving crosses the double yellow line and collides with a truck. The truck is carrying dynamite, which explodes and kills 5 people. Cause in Fact: Crossing the double yellow line Proximate Cause: Negligence was cause of killing 5 people who were two blocks away Foreseeable Harm: Court must decide if crossing a double yellow line and causing the explosion which then killed 5 people was foreseeable. Unlikely….

Contributory Negligence Cannot recover damages from the defendant if your own negligence contributed in any way to the harm suffered Slipping on a wet floor when a warning sign is displayed Comparative Negligence Dividing the loss according to the degree to which each person is at fault Passenger sues for injuries suffered in a car accident, but did not have seatbelt on

Counterclaim A claim made by a defendant against a plaintiff in a civil suit Passenger was distracting the driver Assumption of Risk A person voluntarily encounters a know n danger and decides to accept the risk of that danger