Tort Law Notes

Torts are a crucial area of law, especially affecting businesses and their managers.
Chapters 6 and 7 are relevant, with a focus on Chapter 7 as it lays the groundwork for tort law.
Chapter 6 on intentional torts is less emphasized due to its limited relevance to commercial business law.

Duty of care requires acting in a reasonably prudent manner.
When explaining duty in an exam, it's important to articulate the concept of acting as a reasonably prudent person would.

Breach is the failure to act in a reasonably prudent manner; it's a failure to fulfill the duty of care.

Negligence is the result of breaching a duty (failure to act in a reasonably prudent manner).
Negligence does not automatically equate to a tort; all four elements (duty, breach, cause, and damage) must be present.

Causation represents the link between the negligent act and the injury or damage.
Injuries usually manifest as physical harm, property damage, or sometimes emotional distress, with courts often seeking physical manifestations of harm.

Someone speeding at 95 mph might be negligent, but it's not a tort unless it causes damage or harm.
Negligent behavior doesn't always result in a tort.

Breach of duty is also known as Negligence. Duty + Breach = Negligence
Negligence per se occurs when a duty is defined by a statute and that statute is breached.
- If the duty is defined by a statute and you breach it, that's negligence per se.
For example, if a statute requires wearing a seat belt, failure to do so is an automatic breach of duty.
Plaintiff showing failure to follow a statutory safety standard results in an automatic instance of negligence.

Strict liability is an alternative to negligence.
It applies when an activity is unreasonably dangerous, regardless of the care taken. Is the activity unreasonably dangerous?
Examples
- Blasting
- Keeping wild animals
Even if utmost care is taken, liability can still be assessed if the activity's inherent danger causes harm.
It still requires proving cause and damage.

Product liability concerns whether a product is unreasonably dangerous due to:
- Defective design
- Substandard materials in manufacturing
- Failure to warn
Warning stickers are used to alert users to potential dangers.

Duty breach leads to negligence.
Breach of a statute is negligence per se.
Unreasonably dangerous activities (e.g., blasting, keeping wild animals) lead to strict liability.
Product liability arises from defective design, manufacture, or failure to warn.

Still must prove cause, and damage for all four liability sources: duty of breach, negligence per se, the strict liability and the product's liability

Scenario: A driver's negligence in the morning leads to a non-injury incident. Later, the affected person is in a car accident. Can the morning driver be sued for the afternoon accident?
In this scenario, a tort likely does not exist.
While there was a duty, breach, and damage, causation becomes an issue.

Proximate cause requires a strong nexus between the negligence and the damage, closely linked in time and space.
The cause has two subcomponents.
Without proximate cause, liability can't extend indefinitely upstream.

Duty, breach, cause (in fact and proximate), and damage.
Courts may dismiss cases lacking sufficient closeness in time and space to establish proximate cause.