Torts
Torts tests negligence, intentional torts, strict liability, products liability, defamation, privacy, and damages. Identify the duty, breach, causation, and harm before applying defenses.
Core rules
- Duty: foreseeable plaintiffs; special relationships; no general duty to rescue; landowner duties vary by entrant status.
- Breach: reasonable person, custom, and res ipsa loquitur.
- Causation: actual cause and proximate cause; intervening causes cut off liability if unforeseeable.
- Defenses: comparative fault and assumption of risk.
- Intentional torts: battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass, and conversion; privileges include consent and self-defense.
- Strict liability and products liability: defect, causation, and warning; preemption may apply.
- Defamation: publication, falsity, fault; public figures need actual malice; privileges apply.
- Privacy: appropriation, intrusion, public disclosure, and false light.
Worked example
Driver runs a red light and hits Pedestrian, who has a pre-existing heart condition. Driver owes a duty to foreseeable pedestrians; breach is the red-light violation; actual cause is the collision; proximate cause is not cut off by the eggshell condition. If Pedestrian was jaywalking, comparative fault reduces recovery but does not necessarily bar it.
Traps
The economic loss rule bars negligence claims for pure financial loss. The rescue doctrine keeps a rescuer's claim foreseeable. Bystander negligent infliction requires close relationship and contemporaneous observation. Defamation requires falsity when the plaintiff is a public official or figure.