The purpose of this memo will be to examine and provide an overview of the legal principles for negligence and liability. Negligence is “behaviour or actions that fall below an expected of care”, and liability refers to the responsibility for the injury or harm1. For behaviour to be found negligent four elements need to be met and proven: duty of care, standard of care, damages and proximate cause1. This memo will describe the elements of negligence, liability, including vicarious liability and occupier’s liability, and the concepts of risk management.
Duty of Care Duty of care refers to a person being responsible for the safety of others if he or she can foresee these people being affected by his or her actions1. The presence of a relationship and the proximity principle are two elements that can give rise to a duty of care1. Relationships that give rise to duty of care include coaches-athletes, parents-child, chauffeur-passengers. The proximity principle, also referred to as the neighbour principle, refers to the duty a person has to refrain from conduct that can foreseeably cause injuries to those in one’s direct proximity. In Bain v. Calgary Board of Education, the defendant owed a greater duty of care to the students since the student’s parents signed a waiver authorizing the defendant to act on behalf of the parent in the reasonable care of the students, who came from a vocational school for the learning disabled. His standard of care was therefore equal to that of a
A) The topic concerning this case is negligence law. The issue is whether Simon would be successful perusing a negligence claim.
The tort law section that falls into this case is negligence. Negligence is made up of three elements which determine negligence and duty of care is owed in this case State of Victoria v Bryar [1970] 44 ALJR 174.
Although the Health and Safety at work etc. Act 1974 provides criminal legislation for employers, there are various key health and safety requirements that identify a duty of care owed to an employee by an employer, that have been set via precedents. This essay aims to identify the key health and safety requirements owed by an employer to an employee, deriving from common law, including the principle of vicarious liability
There are three elements that must be present for an act or omission to be negligent; (1) The defendant owed a duty of care towards the plaintiff; (2) The defendant breached the duty of care by an act or omission; (3) The plaintiff must suffer damage as a result - be it physical, emotional or financial. The court might decide that Freddy (the plaintiff) was owed a duty of care by Elvis (the defendant) if they find that what happened to Freddy was in the realm of reasonable forseeability - any harm that could be caused to a 'neighbour' by Elvis' actions that he could reasonably have expected to happen. The 'neighbour principle' was established in the case of Donoghue v. Stevenson (1932).
There are two common factors that must exist before the law says a duty of care exists, which are
In certain situations, a duty of care is owed to another person. For example, a surgeon owes a duty of care to whoever they operate on. The existence of a duty of care is established by the Neighbour Test which was brought in by Lord Aitken after the Donoghue v Stevenson case;
Our text defines a tort as “a civil wrong” and negligence as “a tort, a civil or personal wrong” (Pozgar, 2012). Negligence as it is related to healthcare is an unintentional commission or omission of an act that a reasonably prudent person or organization would or would not do under normal circumstances. Not following a recognized standard of care could be considered negligence. The case I have chosen to study is one from the Circuit Court of Baltimore City Maryland and is that of Enso Martinez a minor by and through his parent (Rebecca Fielding) vs The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore Maryland July 2013. I would describe this as a landmark, “David vs Goliath” case
Negligence occurs when a citizen has suffered loss due to the carelessness of another. The first element of a negligence case is to find if the duty of care, the obligation of an individual to hold responsibility while performing any acts affecting others, is breached (Negligence and the Duty of Care, 2013). The Supreme Court of Queensland’s decision in May 2011, during the trial of French v QBE Insurance (Australia) Limited [2011] QSC 105 demonstrates how a taxi driver breached his duty of care and therefore, would be liable for the death of his passenger (Hamilton, 2011).
In the state of Minnesota it is a landlord’s duty “that the premises and all common areas are fit for the use intended by the parties.” Minn. Stat. 504B.161, subd. 1(1) (2015). Many negligence cases have interpreted this law in different ways that rely on the specific conditions during the time of the incident, and if the event was reasonably foreseeable and preventable. The foreseeability of an event can be determined within a reasonable amount of care for the premises. Frye v. Huntington Point Apartment Bldg., A05-2356, 2006 WL 1704234, 2 (Minn. Ct. App, 2006). Part of the reasonable care includes a duty to inspect, repair, and inform tenants of dangers. Id. In order to win, one must prove all four elements of a negligence claim: one, did the landlord have a duty to uphold; two, did the landlord violate that duty; three, was someone injured; four, did the violation of the duty cause the injury. Id. In regards to negligence claims that involve lighting, the key factor that needs to be proven is whether or not the plaintiff could reasonably see what they were doing. Namchek v. Tulley, 259 Minn. 469, 107 N.W.2d 856, 472 (1961). As well accumulations of water on stairways are dangerous and if resulting from landlord negligence are the basis for a claim. Frye v. Huntington Point Apartment Bldg., A05-2356, 2006
In Clarke v Army and navy Cooperative Society ltd (1903) 1 K.B 155 , the plaintiff purchased a tin of chlorinated lime from the defendant’s store When the plaintiff tried to open it in the usual way by pressing the lid off with a spoon the content flew on to her face and injured her eyes. The defendants knew of this danger but negligently omitted to warn the plaintiff about that . The defendants were held liable in tort towards her.
Establishing whether not the current case is analogous to cases in which a duty of care already been determine. For instance the category of which duty of care has been held not to exist. The law justifies all these through the word responsibility. Everyone has a responsibility for their actions. This same word, responsibility, is also used to justify strict and vicarious liability. Parents, guardians, employers and other similar persons are responsible for their wards and employees. I think this is also a balancing of the scale. Due to circumstances such as incapacity in law of inability to pay, the injured party may be
The main idea of the law of negligence is to ensure that people exercise reasonable care when they act by measuring the potential harm that may foreseeably cause harm to other people. Negligence is the principal trigger for liability to ascend in matters that deal with the loss of property of personal injury. Therefore, a person cannot be liable for something unless they have been found negligent or have contributed to the loss of property or injury to the plaintiff (Stuhmcke, 2005). There is more to
In this report is a fully reasoned quantification of, our client, Mr. Steven Pearson’s personal injury claim against Mr. Fred Prendergast.
Despite the general principle excluding liability for omissions, liability may arise in certain exceptional circumstances. Although these situations where a duty may arise on the basis of an omission are difficult to classify, what is usually required in all of them is some element of proximity. This may be created in a number of situations which will now be looked at. In addition, in such cases, the factors for establishing a duty of care (forseeability, proximity, fair, just and reasonable) laid down in Caparo will also need to be looked at.
“The essential purpose and most basic principle of tort law is that the plaintiff must be placed in the position he or she would have been in absent the defendant’s fault or negligence.” It is impossible to fully restore the plaintiff, as he will never be fully restored. However, compensation is the best way to put the plaintiff back into his original position. Even though most resources of the tort system are spent on dealing with claims, it is a very slow process as it is so complex because it involves many parties. It is often time consuming and expensive to file a claim, making it very cost-ineffective. The increased involvement of insurance companies has made it even more time consuming, with the introduction of their own