BLAW 375 Exam 2 - Core Concepts (Essentials)

Tort law

The law of civil wrongs that cause legally recognized harm and allow a person to seek a remedy, usually damages.

Compensatory damages

Money intended to compensate the plaintiff for actual losses caused by the defendant.

Punitive damages

Money intended to punish especially wrongful conduct and deter similar behavior, not merely compensate the plaintiff.

Three major tort fault categories

Intentional torts, negligence, and strict liability.

Intentional tort

A tort based on a defendant intentionally committing the act that invades a legally protected interest.

Negligence

Failure to use the level of care a reasonably prudent person would use under similar circumstances.

Strict liability

Liability that does not require the plaintiff to prove the defendant was negligent or intended the harm.

Intent (intentional torts)

The defendant acts with the purpose of producing a consequence or knows the consequence is substantially certain to occur.

Transferred intent

Intent directed at one person or traditional intentional tort transfers when the act instead causes an actionable invasion against another person.

Imminent (assault)

The threatened contact appears about to occur without significant delay. A vague threat of future harm is generally insufficient.

Assault versus battery

Assault is reasonable apprehension of imminent contact. Battery is the completed harmful or offensive contact.

Consent

Permission to conduct that would otherwise be tortious. Liability can still arise when the defendant exceeds the consent's scope.

Self-defense

A privilege to use reasonably necessary and proportionate force to protect oneself from an imminent threat.

Defense of property

A limited privilege to use reasonable force to protect property. Deadly or seriously injurious force is generally not allowed solely to protect property.

Shopkeeper's privilege

A merchant may reasonably detain a suspected shoplifter when there are reasonable grounds and the detention uses a reasonable manner and duration.

Trespass to land

Intentional entry onto land possessed by another, or causing an object or person to enter, without permission or legal privilege.

Trespass to chattels

Intentional interference with another person's personal property that causes dispossession, damage, or another legally sufficient loss.

Conversion

Intentional exercise of serious dominion or control over another's personal property that may justify requiring payment of the property's full value.

Why must a defamatory statement be false?

Truth is a complete defense to defamation because defamation protects against false injury to reputation.

Fact versus opinion in defamation

Pure opinion is generally protected, but a statement may be actionable if it implies specific facts capable of being proven true or false.

Libel versus slander

Libel is traditionally written or recorded defamation. Slander is traditionally spoken defamation.

Defamation per se

A category of especially harmful false statements for which reputational injury may be presumed, such as accusations of serious crime or professional misconduct.

Public official (defamation)

A government official whose position or conduct makes public scrutiny and discussion especially important.

Public figure (defamation)

A person with widespread fame or someone who voluntarily becomes prominent in a particular public controversy.

Actual malice

Knowledge that a statement is false or reckless disregard for whether it is true or false.

Reckless disregard for truth

Publishing while subjectively entertaining serious doubts about truth or consciously disregarding a high probability of falsity.

Qualified privilege (defamation)

Conditional protection for a good-faith communication between people with corresponding interests or duties. Abuse can defeat it.

Constitutional actual malice versus common-law malice

Constitutional actual malice concerns knowledge or reckless disregard of falsity. Common-law malice may involve ill will, improper purpose, or abuse of a privilege.

Does Section 230 protect the person who created defamatory content?

Not merely because the content was posted online. The protection generally concerns the platform hosting another person's content.

Intrusion upon seclusion

An intentional and highly offensive intrusion into a private place, conversation, or matter in which the plaintiff reasonably expects privacy.

Does intrusion upon seclusion require publication?

No. The wrongful intrusion itself is the injury.

Public disclosure of private facts

Widespread disclosure of truthful, highly private information that would be highly offensive and is not of legitimate public concern.

False light

Publicizing material that places a person before the public in a misleading and highly offensive false impression.

Defamation versus public disclosure of private facts

Defamation generally requires a false reputation-harming statement. Public disclosure can involve completely true but highly private information.

Improper purpose (interference claims)

A purpose that makes the interference wrongful rather than legitimate competition, such as acting solely to injure another business.

Quasi-property (INS v. AP)

A limited property-like interest enforceable between direct competitors in time-sensitive news, even though the underlying facts are not owned against the public.

Is reverse engineering generally permitted under trade-secret law?

Yes, when the information is acquired lawfully and the reverse engineering does not violate an independent legal duty.

Puffery

Vague, exaggerated sales language that a reasonable person would not treat as a specific verifiable fact.

Injunction versus damages in false advertising

An injunction prevents threatened harm and may not require a precise completed-loss calculation. Damages compensate proven loss and require stronger proof of causation and amount.

Commercial speech

Speech that proposes or relates to a commercial transaction, such as advertising goods or services.

Employment at will

The default rule that an indefinite employment relationship may generally be ended by either party, subject to contractual, statutory, and public-policy limits.

Wrongful discharge in violation of public policy

A claim that an employee was fired for a reason that violates a clearly recognized public policy, such as refusing illegal conduct or performing a legal duty.

Reasonable-person standard

An objective standard asking how a reasonably prudent person would act under similar circumstances.

Negligence per se

Use of a statutory violation to establish or support breach when the plaintiff and injury fall within the statute's protective purpose.

Res ipsa loquitur

A doctrine permitting an inference of negligence when the event ordinarily would not happen without negligence and the defendant was responsible for the causal instrumentality.

Does res ipsa loquitur create automatic liability?

No. It permits an inference of negligence; the factfinder can still reject liability.

Actual cause

The factual connection between the defendant's conduct and the plaintiff's injury.

But-for test

Ask whether the injury would have occurred but for the defendant's conduct. If it would have occurred anyway, ordinary actual causation is missing.

Intervening cause

A later event that contributes to the plaintiff's injury after the defendant's original conduct.

Contributory negligence

A traditional defense under which any negligence by the plaintiff contributing to the injury may completely bar recovery.

Pure comparative negligence

The plaintiff may recover reduced damages even when the plaintiff is more responsible than the defendant.

Modified comparative negligence

The plaintiff can recover only when the plaintiff's fault does not reach or exceed the jurisdiction's stated threshold.

Discretionary versus operational government conduct

Discretionary conduct involves policy choices or resource allocation and receives more protection. Operational conduct carries out ordinary duties and may remain actionable.

Does compliance with a safety statute or code always prove reasonable care?

No. Compliance is evidence, but the legal minimum may be a floor rather than a ceiling when reasonable care requires more.

Factors of an abnormally dangerous activity

High risk, likely serious harm, inability to eliminate risk through care, uncommon usage, inappropriate location, and danger compared with community value.

Privity of contract

A direct contractual relationship between parties. Modern tort products liability can allow recovery without direct privity with the manufacturer.

Manufacturing defect

A product departs from its intended design because it was made incorrectly.

Manufacturing defect versus design defect

A manufacturing defect affects a unit that differs from the plan. A design defect exists in products that correctly follow an unsafe plan.

Consumer-expectations test (design defect)

A product is defective when it performs less safely than an ordinary consumer would reasonably expect during foreseeable use.

Elements of Assault

1) An intentional act.

2) The act causes the plaintiff to reasonably apprehend contact.

3) The threatened harmful or offensive contact is imminent.

Elements of Battery

1) Intent to cause the contact, or knowledge it is substantially certain.

2) Harmful or offensive contact.

3) Contact with the plaintiff's person, directly or indirectly.

4) No consent or other legal privilege.

Elements of False Imprisonment

1) Intentional confinement.

2) Within boundaries fixed by the defendant, with no reasonable escape.

3) Without lawful privilege.

4) The plaintiff is aware of the confinement or is harmed by it.

Elements of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED)

1) Extreme and outrageous conduct.

2) Intent or recklessness.

3) The conduct causes the distress.

4) Severe emotional distress.

Elements of Defamation

1) A false factual statement concerning the plaintiff.

2) Publication to at least one third person.

3) The required level of fault.

4) Reputational harm or legally presumed harm.

Public officials and public figures must also prove actual malice.

Elements of Intrusion upon Seclusion

1) An intentional intrusion.

2) Into a private place, conversation, or matter in which the plaintiff reasonably expects privacy.

3) The intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

Publication is not required.

Elements of Appropriation

1) Use of the plaintiff's name, image, likeness, or identity.

2) Without authorization.

3) For commercial or another improper advantage.

Elements of Public Disclosure of Private Facts

1) Publicity or widespread disclosure.

2) Of truthful but highly private facts.

3) The disclosure would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

4) The facts are not of legitimate public concern.

Elements of False Light

1) Publicity.

2) Material that creates a false or misleading impression about the plaintiff.

3) The false impression would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

4) The defendant has the required level of fault.

Elements of Intentional Interference with a Business Relationship

1) A valid existing or prospective economic relationship.

2) The defendant knows of it.

3) Intentional interference through improper means or an improper purpose.

4) The interference causes disruption.

5) Economic harm results.

Elements of Negligence

1) Duty.

2) Breach.

3) Causation, including actual and proximate cause.

4) Legally recognized harm or damages.

Elements of Negligence Per Se

1) The defendant violated a safety statute or regulation.

2) The plaintiff belongs to the class the rule protects.

3) The injury is the type the rule was designed to prevent.

4) The violation caused legally recognized harm.

Elements of Strict Products Liability

1) A qualifying product defect.

2) The defect actually and proximately caused the injury.

3) The plaintiff suffered legally recognized harm.

The plaintiff need not prove negligence.