Business Law: Criminal Law, Intentional Torts, Negligence, and Strict Liability

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering Criminal Law (Chapter 6), Intentional Torts (Chapter 7), and Negligence and Strict Liability (Chapter 8), based on lecture slides and textbook materials.

Crime

Any act or omission forbidden by public law.

Actus Reus

The wrongful or overt physical act required to establish criminal liability.

Mens Rea

The criminal intent or mental fault required to constitute a crime.

Mala In Se

Crimes that are inherently wrong in themselves, or morally wrong.

Mala Prohibita

Crimes that are not inherently or morally wrong, but are declared wrongful by statute or public law.

Felony

A serious crime, typically punishable by incarceration of more than one year in a state or federal penitentiary.

Misdemeanor

A less serious crime, typically punishable by incarceration of less than one year in a local jail.

Vicarious Liability

Legal liability imposed upon one person or entity for the acts of another, such as holding employers criminally or civilly liable for the acts of their employees.

Subjective Fault

A category of mental fault requiring purposeful, knowing, or reckless conduct by the actor, seen in crimes such as larceny and embezzlement.

Objective Fault

A category of mental fault involving a deviation from a standard of care through negligent or careless conduct, such as careless driving or issuing bad checks.

Liability Without Fault

Criminal liability imposed without requiring any intent or mental fault, such as the unlawful sale of alcohol to a minor or sale of adulterated food.

White-Collar Crime

Nonviolent crime involving deceit, corruption, or a breach of trust.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act

Federal legislation creating new corporate offenses, adding financial disclosure rules, and imposing fines and imprisonment up to 20 years for altering, destroying, or falsifying documents to impede an investigation.

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)

A federal law enacted to stop organized crime from infiltrating and corrupting legitimate commercial businesses.

Larceny

The trespassory taking and carrying away of the personal property of another with the intent to permanently deprive the victim of the property.

Embezzlement

The fraudulent taking of another person's property by someone who was already in lawful possession of that property.

False Pretenses

Obtaining title to the property of another by means of representations known to be materially false and made with the intent to defraud.

Robbery

The unlawful taking of personal property from another's person or presence by means of force or the threat of force, combining larceny and assault or battery.

Burglary

Under modern statutes, an unlawful entry into a building with the intent to commit a felony therein.

Extortion and Bribery

Extortion is obtaining property by threat of future harm; bribery is offering money or property to a public official to influence that official's decision.

Forgery

The intentional making or altering of a written document with the intent to defraud.

Duress

A criminal defense asserting that the defendant was coerced into committing the wrongful conduct by threat of immediate serious bodily harm; valid for offenses other than murder.

Entrapment

A criminal defense establishing that an individual was induced or persuaded to commit a crime by a law enforcement official.

Probable Cause

The standard of proof required for an arrest or search, established by facts or apparent facts indicating a reasonable link between a specific person or place and a crime.

Booking

The administrative processing of an arrested suspect, including recording personal information, fingerprinting, photographing (mug shot), conducting warrant and health checks, and inventorying personal property.

Initial Appearance

A pretrial judicial proceeding under rules such as Federal Rule 5(a) where a magistrate informs the accused of charges, advises rights, appoints counsel, and reviews warrantless arrest probable cause within 48 hours.

Bail

The conditional release of a defendant from pretrial custody upon payment of money or security to ensure their appearance at subsequent court hearings.

Release on Own Recognizance (R.O.R.)

The pretrial release of an accused person without posting financial bail, based on a signed promise to return and strong community ties.

Indictment

A formal written charge issued by a grand jury determining that there is sufficient probable cause to justify putting the defendant on trial.

Information

A formal charging document issued directly by a prosecutor without a grand jury, followed by a preliminary hearing to establish probable cause.

Arraignment

A court proceeding where the defendant is formally advised of the charges in an indictment or information and is required to enter a plea.

Plea of Nolo Contendere

A 'no contest' plea that produces the same criminal effect as a guilty plea but cannot be used as an admission of fault in subsequent civil litigation.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

The constitutional standard of evidence required to convict a defendant in a criminal prosecution, defined as less than 100 percent certainty but more than a high probability.

Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

A Fourth Amendment evidentiary doctrine excluding from criminal trial any secondary evidence derived from an unlawful, unconstitutional police search or seizure.

Constitutional Protections for Criminal Defendants

The specific Bill of Rights guarantees protecting defendants: Fourth (search/seizure), Fifth (due process, grand jury, double jeopardy, self-incrimination), Sixth (speedy jury trial, counsel, confront witnesses), and Eighth (bail, cruel/unusual punishment).

Tort

A civil wrong or injury (other than breach of contract) for which the legal system provides monetary damages or other relief to the injured party.

Intent (Tort Law)

The state of mind where an actor desires to cause the consequences of an act or knows that those consequences are substantially certain to result.

Intent Determination Flowchart

A legal decision tree establishing intent if the defendant desires consequences, or alternatively, if the defendant believes consequences are substantially certain to result.

Battery

The intentional infliction of harmful or offensive bodily contact with a plaintiff or items intimately connected to the plaintiff's person.

Assault

The intentional infliction of reasonable apprehension of immediate harmful or offensive bodily contact, without requiring physical impact.

False Imprisonment

The intentional confining of a person within boundaries fixed by the actor against their will, with no reasonable or safe avenue of escape.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

The intentional or reckless causing of severe emotional distress to another through extreme and outrageous conduct.

Defamation

A false communication to a third party that causes injury to a person's reputation in the community.

Libel

Defamation communicated in written, printed, or electronically transmitted form.

Slander

Oral or spoken defamation communicated to a third party.

Appropriation

An invasion of privacy tort consisting of the unauthorized commercial use of another person's name or identity.

Intrusion

An invasion of privacy tort involving the unreasonable and highly offensive interference with the solitude or seclusion of another.

Public Disclosure of Private Facts

An invasion of privacy tort involving highly offensive and objectionable publicity given to truthful but private information concerning another person.

False Light

An invasion of privacy tort involving highly offensive publicity that attributes false characteristics, conduct, or beliefs to an individual.

Trespass to Real Property

The intentional, wrongful physical entry onto, remaining on, or causing an object to enter land owned or possessed by another.

Nuisance

A nontrespassory interference with another person's interest in the private use and enjoyment of their land.

Trespass to Personal Property

The intentional dispossession, use, or intermeddling with the personal property (chattels) in the lawful possession of another.

Conversion

The intentional exercise of dominion or control over personal property that so substantially interferes with the owner's rights as to warrant payment of its full value.

Interference with Contractual Relations

An economic tort involving intentionally and improperly inducing or causing a contracting party not to perform their contractual agreement.

Disparagement

The publication of injurious, false statements concerning the title, property, quality, or commercial products of another's business.

Fraudulent Misrepresentation

A false statement of material fact made with knowledge of its falsity and the intent to induce justifiable reliance, causing injury.

Negligence

Conduct that falls below the standard established by law to protect others, characterized by failing to act as a reasonably prudent person would or acting as a prudent person would not.

Reasonable Person Standard

The objective legal standard of care measuring what an ordinary, reasonably prudent person would do under the same or similar circumstances.

Negligence Per Se

A conclusive standard of negligent breach established when an actor violates a safety statute designed to protect a specific class from a specific harm.

Duty to Trespassers

The duty of a land possessor to refrain from intentionally, willfully, or wantonly injuring an entrant on land without permission.

Duty to Licensees

The landowner's duty to warn social guests or privileged entrants of known dangerous conditions that the licensee is unlikely to discover on their own.

Duty to Invitees

The landowner's duty to exercise reasonable care to inspect, discover, and protect business visitors and public guests from dangerous premises conditions.

Attractive Nuisance Doctrine

A tort doctrine imposing liability on landowners for physical harm to trespassing children caused by artificial conditions that foreseeable attract them.

Res Ipsa Loquitur

Meaning 'the thing speaks for itself'; a doctrine permitting the trier of fact to infer breach of duty and causation from the mere occurrence of an event that normally does not happen absent negligence.

Factual Cause

Actual cause determined by demonstrating that the plaintiff's injuries would not have occurred 'but for' the defendant's negligent act, or that the act was a substantial factor.

Proximate Cause

The legal scope of liability limiting a negligent defendant's responsibility to foreseeable risks and natural consequences of their conduct.

Superseding Cause

An intervening event or act that is unforeseeable, breaking the causal chain and relieving the original negligent defendant from legal liability.

Contributory Negligence

A traditional common law defense that completely bars the plaintiff from recovering any damages if their own failure to exercise reasonable care contributed to their injury.

Comparative Negligence

A modern tort rule where damages are apportioned and divided between the plaintiff and defendant in proportion to their relative degrees of fault.

Assumption of the Risk

An affirmative defense barring or reducing recovery when a plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily proceeds to encounter a known dangerous condition.

Defenses to a Negligence Action Framework

A decision process for evaluating tort defenses: analyzing negligence, assumption of risk, contributory negligence, comparative negligence apportionment, and the last clear chance doctrine.

Strict Liability

Absolute civil liability imposed for injuries caused by certain activities or products, without requiring any showing of fault, intent, or negligence.

Abnormally Dangerous Activities

Activities involving a high degree of serious harm to persons or property that cannot be eliminated by reasonable care and are not matters of common usage.

Respondeat Superior

A common law doctrine of vicarious liability holding an employer strictly liable for torts committed by employees within the course and scope of employment.

Product Liability

The civil liability of manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers for damages or injuries caused by defective commercial products.

Defect in Manufacture

A manufacturing flaw occurring when a physical product departs from its design specifications due to improper assembly, poor materials, or flawed quality testing.

Defect in Design

A product defect where an entire product line is dangerous, judged under either the risk-utility analysis or consumer expectation test.

Risk-Utility Analysis

An evaluation of design defect balancing the gravity and likelihood of danger against the economic feasibility of producing a safer alternative design and the product's social utility.

Crashworthiness Doctrine

A rule of design liability requiring motor vehicle manufacturers to protect occupants against foreseeable injuries arising from a secondary collision within the vehicle.

Failure to Warn

A marketing product defect arising when a manufacturer fails to place clear, conspicuous warnings about non-obvious dangerous propensities on packaging.

Defect in Packaging

A defect occurring when a product is placed into containers that are not sufficiently tamperproof or fail to indicate when tampering has occurred.

Statute of Repose

A statutory time limit that extinguishes product liability claims a specific number of years after the product is first manufactured or sold, regardless of injury date.