Torts - Day I Practice Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering fundamental tort concepts including intentional torts, negligence, strict liability, premises liability, invasion of privacy, and defenses based on the lecture notes.

Tort

A private wrong (other than a breach of contract) committed through intentional or unintentional conduct by a tortfeasor that injures another person, business entity, corporation, or association or their property, for which the law allows monetary damages.

Tortfeasor

An individual, corporation, business entity, or association that commits a tort.

Goals of Tort Law

(1) To compensate the injured party for their damages, and (2) to a lesser extent, to deter similar conduct by imposing punitive damages.

Intentional Torts

Torts where one person intentionally injures another, frequently (but not always) also constituting a crime.

Negligence Torts

Torts occurring when an entity acts carelessly or inadvertently, causing harm by breaching a duty of care owed to another.

Strict Liability Torts

Torts where the mere fact of injury establishes liability because someone performed an inherently hazardous action, such as keeping a wild animal as a pet that bites someone.

Joint Tortfeasors

Multiple defendants in a tort lawsuit brought in by the plaintiff or by the original defendant to share liability or shift blame/payment.

Class Actions

A single lawsuit filed on behalf of multiple injured persons who are similarly situated (suffered the same harm) instead of filing hundreds or thousands of separate suits.

Wal-Mart (2011)

A Supreme Court decision establishing that class action members must share the exact same legal theory and factual basis to proceed as a class.

Negligence Per Se

Proof of negligence established automatically by a criminal or civil finding of guilt/commission regarding a violation of a statute, ordinance, or rule.

Elements of Negligence

The four items a plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of evidence: (1) Defendant owed a duty of care, (2) Defendant breached the duty, (3) Causal connection (actual and proximate cause), and (4) Injury justifying damages.

Reasonable Person Standard

The legal standard courts apply to evaluate whether a defendant exercised ordinary care under the circumstances.

Actual Cause

The causation requirement evaluated using the "but for" test (or sine qua non), asking whether the victim's injury would have occurred without the defendant's conduct.

Proximate Cause

The true cause which, in a natural, predictable, and continuous sequence, caused the injuries, established only if the consequences were foreseeable in advance.

Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. (1928)

The landmark case establishing that foreseeability limits legal liability and proximate cause.

Substantial Factor Test

An alternative proximate cause test used in states like California asking whether a reasonable person would believe the defendant's negligent conduct was the cause of the injury.

Res Ipsa Loquitur

Latin for "the thing speaks for itself"; a doctrine preventing summary judgment when an injury doesn't usually happen without negligence, other parties are ruled out, and the negligence is within the scope of the defendant's duty of care.

Assumption of Risk

A defense to negligence precluding recovery of damages when a plaintiff voluntarily puts themselves in a dangerous situation and suffers harm from customary and known risks.

Professional Liability

Also known as malpractice; a negligence standard based on the failure to use the degree of care, learning, and skill ordinarily possessed and applied by the average prudent member of the profession.

Duty to Warn Trespassers

Landowners have no duty to warn trespassers of natural dangerous conditions, but must warn known trespassers of man-made risks on the property.

Attractive Nuisance

A dangerous object or condition that attracts children who are too young to understand or appreciate its dangers, requiring landowners to take steps to keep them out.

Licensees

Social guests or visitors on property by invitation or permission who are owed a duty of reasonable care, excluding an obligation to inspect for hidden dangers.

Invitees

Business patrons on premises who are owed an active duty by business owners to inspect, monitor, correct, or warn against dangerous hidden conditions.

Assault (WPIC 35.50)

In Washington State, an intentional touching, striking, cutting, or shooting with unlawful force; an act done with intent to inflict bodily injury accompanied by present ability; or an act creating reasonable apprehension and imminent fear of bodily injury.

Self-Defense

A justification defense evaluated using subjective standards (facts known to the defendant at the time) and objective standards (proportionality and reasonableness of force).

False Imprisonment

The unlawful detention or restraint of a person against their will, typically achieved through physical force or coercion.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

An intentional tort requiring extreme or outrageous conduct committed intentionally or recklessly, actual and proximate cause, and resulting mental/emotional injury to the victim.

Misappropriation

An invasion of privacy tort committed by using a person's name, likeness, or photo without permission for commercial purposes or implied endorsement.

Intrusion into Solitude

An invasion of privacy tort involving unpermitted intrusion into private affairs, such as violating Washington State's two-party wiretap statute (RCW 9.73.030) by recording private conversations without consent.

Public Disclosure of Private Facts

An invasion of privacy tort occurring when an entity reveals non-public, private facts (such as personal medical records) that an ordinary person in the community would find offensive.

Defamation

An injury to reputation comprising libel (written) or slander (spoken), requiring proof of communication to a third person, identification of the plaintiff, false statements, and fault.

Actual Malice Test

The constitutional standard required for public figures suing the press for defamation, requiring proof that the publication was knowingly false or published with reckless disregard for truth.