Torts: Negligence, Intentional Torts, and Strict Liability
What the exam tests
Torts questions test duty, breach, causation, damages, intentional torts, defamation, privacy, products liability, and strict liability. Minnesota applies modified comparative fault, so check the plaintiff's percentage.
Core rules
- Negligence: duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages. Duty is owed to foreseeable plaintiffs. Proximate cause asks whether the harm is within the risk created.
- Standard of care: reasonable person; professionals use customary care; children use a reasonable child of like age and intelligence; landowners have duties based on entrant status.
- Negligence per se: statute intended to protect a class including the plaintiff and prevent the type of harm that occurred.
- Comparative fault: Minnesota bars recovery if the plaintiff's fault is greater than the defendant's; joint and several liability may be limited.
- Intentional torts: battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass, conversion, intentional infliction of emotional distress. Consent and privilege are defenses.
- Defamation: defamatory statement, publication, fault, and harm. Public figures must prove actual malice.
- Products liability: strict liability for manufacturing defects; design and warning defects use risk-utility or consumer expectations.
- Strict liability: abnormally dangerous activities and wild animals.
Worked example
A driver runs a red light and hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The pedestrian sues for negligence. The statute prohibiting red-light running is designed to protect pedestrians from this type of harm, so negligence per se applies. The driver's violation establishes breach, and the pedestrian's injuries are within the risk. Comparative fault may reduce damages if the pedestrian was distracted.
Traps
Do not confuse actual cause with proximate cause. A rescuer is foreseeable. Defamation requires publication to a third party. Strict products liability is not the same as negligence.