Chapter 4
Negligence is behavior that puts another person in unreasonably great danger of damage. A duty is an obligation to conduct responsibly under the law arises from people’s relationships with others. The class plaintiff belongs to establishes the possessor’s duty of care under the legal system. Trespassers, licensees, and invitees constitute the three types of plaintiffs (Edwards & Cull, 2022). Trespassers are those who have no right to be on the defendant’s property. Licensees are the next level up from licensees. Despite not having a legitimate business reason for being at the given place, they have the land possessor’s permission to be there. Lastly, invitees are those that the possessor personally invites to engage in business on their property. Invitees are divided into either public or business types.
The next aspect, the duties, involves both landlords and their tenants. Landlord obligations include being responsible for risks they are aware of, inspecting those risks, maintaining the property in good condition, making reasonable repairs, and shielding renters from criminal conduct. Tenant obligations are the same as those of the landlord. Finally, individuals commonly have no responsibility to help those who are in danger in Anglo/American law. Nevertheless, responsibility for inaction may be established when there is a specific relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant. A specific contact between the defendant and related parties may indeed give rise to an obligation of care.
Chapter 5
When the defendant does not follow the necessary standard of care, there has been a breach of duty. Finding the applicable standard of care and assessing the defendant’s actions in the context of that norm is necessary to determine whether a duty offense has been committed. In a negligence case, the court is essentially asked to consider whether a rational agent of ordinary sense in the defendant’s position would have acted similarly to what the accused did (Edwards & Cull, 2022). The way the issue is phrased necessitates the application of an objective standard in which the defendant’s actions are contrasted with those of a fictitious sensible man. In comparison, if a subjective standard were to be applied, the issue would be whether the accused thought their actions were acceptable.
Typically, the accused who are emotionally disturbed, have the poor intellectual capacity, or have been adjudicated insane are not given any extra consideration. Nevertheless, a defendant’s physical traits are taken into account. An offender will be deemed negligent per se if they break a law that applies to the circumstances of the case and somebody is injured as a consequence of that breach. The plaintiff must demonstrate both their membership in the group of people the law is meant to defend against and the nature of the injury they have suffered. Since they lack any concrete proof, the plaintiff may occasionally be unable to establish negligence. The plaintiff is able to ascertain negligence with the res ipsa loquitur doctrine. Aside from minimal standards of care, there are automobile-guest regulations. Such statutes only make a driver of an automobile accountable to a passenger in their vehicle in cases of severe negligence.
Chapter 6
The actual cause and proximate cause are two distinct factors that make up the causation question. The plaintiff has shown actual cause when they can show that the accused’s activities actually led to their damages. The claimant can establish proximate causation if they can demonstrate that their damages were a highly probable effect of the defendant’s actions. When establishing actual causation, the but-for and substantial-factor tests are applied (Edwards & Cull, 2022).
Proximate, or legal, cause serves to limit an accused’s culpability by relieving them of responsibility where the complainant’s damage was brought about by a string of very unlikely or unusual circumstances resulting from the negligence of the defendant. The majority of American courts often uphold the Cardozo approach. It is required of an accused to anticipate the potential of an intervening cause. The defendant will nonetheless be responsible for the plaintiff’s damages even though the intervening cause was not anticipated. If an intervening cause intensifies to the point that it supersedes other causes, the defendant is released from responsibility.
Reference
Edwards, J. S., & Cull, T. (2022). Tort law (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.