Torts & Products Liability Lecture Overview

Vocabulary flashcards summarizing key tort and products-liability concepts, elements, standards, and defenses from the lecture notes.

Battery (Elements)

Intentional, harmful or offensive contact with the plaintiff’s person.

Assault (Elements)

Intentional act causing plaintiff’s reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact.

Intent Requirement for Assault

• Purpose to cause apprehension
• Knowledge with substantial certainty that apprehension will result.

False Imprisonment (Elements)

• Intentional confinement of plaintiff to fixed boundaries
• Plaintiff’s awareness or resulting harm.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (IIED)

Extreme and outrageous intentional or reckless conduct causing severe emotional distress.

Trespass to Land (Elements)

• Intentional entry
• Causing entry
• Remaining
• Failing to remove a duty-bound object from another’s land.

Trespass to Chattels

Intentional interference with another’s personal property causing minor damage or loss of use.

Conversion

• Intentional substantial interference with another’s personal property
• Defendant liable for full market value.

Transferred Intent Doctrine

Intent to commit a tort on one person transfers when a different tort or person is affected (battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass to land/chattels).

Consent (Defense)

Agreement (express, apparent, or implied by law) that negates liability for an intentional tort.

Apparent Consent

Words or conduct reasonably understood as consent, e.g., custom or failure to object.

Implied by Law Consent

Consent presumed in special circumstances, such as medical emergencies.

Privilege (Defense)

Conduct that would normally be tortious but is excused under the circumstances.

Necessity (Privilege)

Reasonable action to prevent serious harm justifies otherwise tortious conduct.

Self-Defense / Defense of Others

Reasonable force to protect oneself or another from imminent harm.

Defense of Property

Reasonable, non-deadly force to protect real or personal property.

Recapture of Chattels

Privilege to use reasonable force to regain wrongfully taken personal property.

Detention for Investigation

Merchant’s privilege to detain suspected shoplifters for reasonable time/manner.

Privilege to Discipline Children

Parents/teachers may use reasonable force to discipline children.

Privilege to Arrest

Authorized arrest without liability when statutory or common-law requirements met.

Negligence (Prima Facie Elements)

• Duty
• Breach
• Causation (actual & proximate)
• Damages.

Affirmative Duty to Act

• Duty arises from special relationships
• Peril creation
• Undertaking rescue
• Imposed by law.

Rescuer Liability

Rescuer liable if:

• Unreasonable care increases risk
• Victim relies on aid and is harmed.

Reasonable Person Standard

Objective duty to act as a reasonably prudent person under similar circumstances toward foreseeable plaintiffs.

Standard of Care for Children

• Conduct of a child of similar age, experience, and intelligence
• Adult standard if engaged in adult activity.

Professional Standard of Care

Knowledge and skill of an average member of the profession in a similar community (specialists to specialty).

Landowner’s General Duty

Reasonable care to all entrants to avoid foreseeable risks (modern view).

Undiscovered Trespasser

Landowner owes no duty of care.

Anticipated Trespasser

• Duty of reasonable care in operations
• To warn of known, highly dangerous artificial conditions.

Attractive Nuisance Doctrine

Duty to protect child trespassers from dangerous conditions when criteria regarding foreseeability and risk are met.

Licensee

Landowner must:

• Exercise reasonable care
• Warn of known, non-obvious dangers.

Invitee

Landowner owes licensee duties plus:

• Reasonable inspections to discover
• Make safe non-obvious dangers.

Negligence Per Se

Statutory violation establishes breach when statute protects plaintiff class and harm type, unless compliance impossible or more dangerous.

Res Ipsa Loquitur (Traditional Test)

• Accident normally due to negligence
• Instrumentality in defendant’s exclusive control
• Plaintiff did not contribute.

Res Ipsa Loquitur (Restatement Test)

• Event ordinarily due to negligence
• Other causes eliminated
• Negligence within defendant’s duty scope.

Actual Cause (Cause-in-Fact)

• But-for causation
• Substantial factor test for concurrent causes.

Proximate Cause

• Foreseeability test
• Legal limitation on liability for remote consequences.

Intervening Cause

Act after defendant’s breach contributing to harm; may break proximate cause if unforeseeable.

Eggshell Plaintiff Rule

Tortfeasor liable for all resulting harm, even if plaintiff’s pre-existing condition magnifies injury.

Pure Comparative Negligence

• Plaintiff’s recovery reduced by own fault percentage
• Never barred.

Partial Comparative Negligence

• Recovery reduced if plaintiff
• Barred if ≥50%.

Contributory Negligence

• Any plaintiff fault bars recovery
• Unless defendant had last clear chance or was reckless.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress (NIED)

Recovery in:

• Near-miss situations

• Bystander situations

• Special-relationship egregious situations

  With physical symptoms (unless modern rule relaxes).

Employee vs. Independent Contractor

• Employee subject to employer’s right of control
• Employer vicariously liable for employee’s torts within scope, generally not for contractor.

Right-to-Control Test

Extent principal controls manner and method of work determines employment status.

Respondeat Superior

• Employer liable for employee negligence
• Within scope of employment assignments or controlled conduct.

Acts Within Scope of Employment

• Work assigned
• Conduct subject to employer control, even if instructions breached.

Acts Outside Scope of Employment

Independent course of conduct not intended to serve employer’s purpose.

Employee Intentional Torts within Scope

Intentional torts brought within scope include:

• Authorized acts
• Motive to serve employer
• Natural job friction.

Direct Liability of Principal

Principal liable for their:

• Own negligence in hiring/supervising
• Non-delegable duty
• Apparent authority enabling tort.

Vicarious Liability for Independent Contractor

Principal liable for:

• Inherently dangerous activity
• Non-delegable duty
• Estoppel (holding out as agent).

Indemnification

Passive tortfeasor’s right to full reimbursement from active tortfeasor (includes vicarious liability or contract).

Contribution

Joint tortfeasor’s right to recover from others amounts paid exceeding their fault share (pure comparative).

Alternative Liability Doctrine

• All negligent defendants liable when only one caused injury but uncertainty exists
• (Burden shifts).

Joint Enterprise Doctrine

Negligence of one imputed to others engaged in common project with mutual agreement.

Market Share Liability

Manufacturers liable for:

• Proportional market share
• When identical defective products and true tortfeasor unknown.

Defamation (Elements)

• False defamatory statement of and concerning plaintiff
• Published to third party
• Causing damages.

Slander Per Se Categories

Categories include:

• Business dishonor
• Unchastity of unmarried woman
• Loathsome disease
• Crime of moral turpitude.

Public Figure

Person with pervasive notoriety or who thrusts into public controversy; must prove actual malice in defamation.

Actual Malice

• Knowledge of falsity
• Reckless disregard for truth.

Private Figure on Public Concern

Plaintiff must prove speaker’s negligence in defamation action.

Invasion of Privacy Torts

Torts include:

• Misappropriation
• False light
• Intrusion
• Public disclosure of private facts.

Misappropriation of Name or Picture

Defendant’s unauthorized commercial use of plaintiff’s name/likeness; newsworthiness defense.

False Light

Widespread false portrayal highly offensive to reasonable person; public figure must show actual malice.

Intrusion of Privacy

Highly objectionable intrusion into plaintiff’s private affairs where expectation of privacy exists.

Public Disclosure of Private Facts

Widespread publication of truthful private info highly offensive; newsworthiness defense absent actual malice.

Intentional Interference with Business Relations

Knowing, intentional inducement of breach/termination of contract or expectancy causing damages.

Intentional Misrepresentation (Fraud)

• Knowing falsity of material fact
• Intent to induce
• Justifiable reliance
• Damages.

Negligent Misrepresentation

Negligent false statement in business context for plaintiff’s guidance, relied upon causing damages.

Public Nuisance

• Unreasonable interference with community’s health, safety, or property rights
• Actual damages required for individual recovery.

Private Nuisance

Substantial, unreasonable interference with another’s use or enjoyment of property.

Abnormally Dangerous Activity

• Not common usage and creates foreseeable, highly significant risk even with reasonable care
• Strict liability applies.

Strict Products Liability (Elements)

• Defective product
• Unaltered when reaching plaintiff
• Injury during intended/foreseeable use
• Commercial supplier defendant.

Manufacturing Defect

Product departs from intended design, rendering it more dangerous than properly made version.

Design Defect

Reasonable alternative design safer, practical, and cost-comparable existed when product sold.

Failure to Warn

Lack of adequate warning of non-obvious risks associated with product use.

Commercial Supplier

Entity routinely engaged in selling the type of goods; necessary defendant in strict liability claim.

Implied Warranty of Merchantability

Merchant’s goods must be fit for ordinary purposes at sale.

Implied Warranty of Fitness for Particular Purpose

• Seller knows buyer’s specific purpose
• Buyer relies on seller’s skill to select suitable goods.

Express Warranty

Seller’s:

• Affirmation
• Promise
• Description
• Sample relating to goods that becomes part of the bargain.