Torts - Negligence, Intent, and Strict Liability
Torts tests negligence, intentional torts, strict liability, products liability, defamation, and privacy. For negligence, work through duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages in that order.
Negligence and defenses
- Duty is ordinary care; special relationships and statutes may set the standard.
- Breach can be shown by custom, statute, or res ipsa loquitur.
- Proximate cause asks whether the harm was within the risk; unforeseeable intervening causes may cut off liability.
- Comparative negligence reduces recovery; contributory negligence bars in some jurisdictions.
Intentional and strict liability
- Battery requires harmful or offensive contact with intent; assault requires apprehension.
- Defamation requires a false statement of fact, publication, and fault; public plaintiffs must prove actual malice.
- Strict liability applies to abnormally dangerous activities and defective products.
Worked example
A warehouse stores barrels on a high ledge. A barrel falls and injures a passerby, and the warehouse had exclusive control. The plaintiff may use res ipsa loquitur: the accident is the kind that ordinarily does not happen without negligence, and the instrumentality was in the defendant's control. The burden shifts to the defendant to explain.
Traps
Do not merge actual and proximate cause. Do not apply strict liability to ordinary products without a defect. Do not forget constitutional limits in defamation, especially public figures.