tort law intro

Introduction to tort law

‘Tortious liability arises from breach of duty imposed by law; and its breach is resolved by an action for unliquidated damages’.

Breach = broken ones obligation

Damages = compensation/money

Tortfeasor – One who commits a tort.

Tortious – Having the nature of a tort; wrongful act. (when you are careless or reckless)

Covers situations such as:

• somebody injured in a road traffic accident;

• a famous actor libelled by a newspaper;

• an employee injured at work;

• a landowner who has had a trespasser on his or her land; or

• a patient who is injured by a negligent doctor.

The aim of tort damages:

• So far as possible, to place the injured party into the position (financially) they would be if the tort had never been committed.

→ unlike contract law the responsibility is not as great, tort law puts you back in the position like if nothing bad had happened to you.

This is harder to manage when it comes to physical damage, e.g. my legs don’t have the same value has Messi.

Aim to put you in a position as if the harm hadn’t happened to you.

• The common law remedy, as of right, to the successful party.

Time limit to bring claim for damages are –

• 3 years : personal injury (from the date of diagnosis of an injury)

• 6 years : all other torts

Claims for equitable remedies have no formal limits but delay defeats equity - because sometimes money just isn’t enough and other remedies are needed.

→ There is overlaps between tort law and criminal law. e.g. A drives dangerously, B can submit a claim for an injury: tort law, but the police can also use criminal law against A for their driving. A can be found non guilty in criminal law and then guilty in tort law because of the difference in standard of proof.

NEGLIGENCE

Failure to exercise reasonable care, thereby causing injury to others or damage to property. Civil Litigation

To establish negligence, a claimant must prove that:

• the defendant owed a duty of care to the claimant;

• the defendant breached that duty of care by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct; and

• the defendant's breach of duty caused the harm, injury or damage to the claimant

Donoghue v Stevenson  [1932] “the snail in the bottle” case

Miss Donoghue went out to lunch with her friend, went cycling, stopped at a café. Her friend bought her lunch - sandwich, ice cream, and ginger beer. Miss Donoghue poured the ginger beer on the ice cream - to discover a decomposed snail. She suffered shock and digestive issues. She went to take action for having consumed the snail, however she wasn’t able to do so has she wasn’t the customer of the café - no contractual route. She claimed that Mr Stevenson, the manufacturer of the product, should be responsible for the ultimate consumer of the product.

!! consumer vs customer !!

Before this case there was no general responsibility for one person to the other, there was only a prescribed set of relationships where people or the law agreed there was a duty e.g. doctor to patient, parent to child.

The neighbour principle → “You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour, persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions that are called in question”.