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Torts - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Self defense: the defendant must reasonably believe that a tort is about to be committed against himself, a third person, or his property.
        
        Only reasonable force may be used
        
        Deadline force is permitted if reasonably believed to be necessary to prevent serious bodily injury.
        
        Deadly force is never permitted to defend only property.
        
        Shopkeeper's privilege: permits the reasonable detention of someone the shopkeeper reasonably believes has shoplifted goods
        
        No duty to retreat
      - Necessity
        
        If justified only by a private nedessity, the defense is qualified
        
        This privilege trumps a property owner's right to defend his property
        
        A defendant whose property tort was justified by a public necessity has an absolute defense
        
        public necessity is a complete defense
      - Consent: may be either express or implied, Plaintiff must have capacity to consent and the defendant must not exceed the bounds of consent
      - Best defense: P has not established all the elements of a tort
- - - - Professionals: must exercise the knowledge and skill of a member of the profession in good standing
      - Children: must conform to the standard of care of a child of like age, intelligence, and experience (except the adult standard applies if the child is engaged in an adult activity)
      - A landowner's standard of care under traditional rules usually depends on the statute of the person injured on the property.
        
        Tresspassers: the landowner owes no duty to undiscovered trespassers. For discovered trespassers, the landowner owes a duty to warn of or make safe known highly dangerous artificial conditions if not obvious to the trespasser
        
        Licensees: (social guest or solicitor at your door, duty to warn about concealed dangerous conditions known to the occupier) those who come onto the land with express or implied permission but for their own purpose (includes social guests). Duty to exercise reasonable care. The landowner's duty is the same as for discovered trespassers except that it applies to all dangerous artificial and natural conditions
        
        a licensee; that is, one who enters onto land with the owner's permission for her own purpose or business rather than for the owner's benefit. In a jurisdiction following the traditional rules for landowners and possessors of land, the owner owes a licensee the duty to warn of or make safe a dangerous condition known to the owner that creates an unreasonable risk of harm to the licensee and that the licensee is unlikely to discover. The owner has no duty to a licensee to inspect for defects nor to repair known defects.
        
        Invitees: (entering for the benefit: customers in the store and their children) those entering as members of the public or for a purpose connected to the business of the landowner. The landowner's duty is the same as for licensees but with the additional duty to reasonably inspect for dangerous conditions.
      - A criminal statute may serve to establish a specific standard of care in place of general standard of ordinary care if: the plaintiff is within the class that the statute was intended to protect. The statute was designed to prevent the type of harm suffered
      - Negligent infliction of emotional disrtress: the defendant breaches a duty to the plaintiff by creating a risk of physical injury and the plaintiff suffers emotional distress as a result
        
        Plaintiff must be within the zone of danger and ordinarily must suffer physical symptoms from the distress. Exception: the defendant breaches a duty to a bystander not in the zone of danger who 1) is closely related to the injured person 2) was present at the scene of the injury and 3) personally observed or perceived the event
        
        Exception: a relationship exists between the defendant and the plaintiff under which the defendant's negligence has great potential to directly cause emotional distress
      - negligence per se. A clearly stated duty created by a criminal statute may replace the more general duty of care if the proponent of the statutory standard shows that (i) he is in a class intended to be protected by the statute, and (ii) the statute was designed to prevent the type of harm that was suffered.
      - Person with a major liability: required to exercise the degree of care that would be reasonable for a person with that disability. No special standard of care for people with mental disability
      - Generally, there is no duty to prevent a third person from injuring another. However, such a duty will be imposed when the defendant had a special relationship with the third person that gave the defendant the actual ability and authority to act, and the defendant knew or should have known that the third person was likely to injure the other person
  - - - Defendant's motion for directed verdict: if the plaintiff has presented some evidnece of breach of duty (res ipsa), deny the motion for directed verdict and send the case to the jury
        
        If judge determines that the doctrine of res ipsa applies, the P avoids a directed verdict and case goes to jury. Then, jury decides if breach occurs that was the cause of damages in this case. Establishing res ipsa does not automatically win or lose, its up to the jury.
  - - - Indirect causes: an intervening force occurs after the defendant's negligent act and combines with it to cause the injury. Foreseeable intervening forces (such as a negligent rescue) do not cut off the defendant's liability for the consequences of his negligence act.
        
        Where an intervening force combines with the defendant's conduct to cause the plaintiff injury, proximate cause exists only if the defendant's negligence cause a foreseeable harm or caused a foreseeable reaction from an intervening force. Intervening events that produce a harm outside of the scope of what one would normally anticipate from the defendant's negligence are generally deemed unforeseeable and superseding. Such a superseding event will break the chain of causation and relieve the defendant of liability.
    - - Merged causes: when two acts bring about an injury and either one alone would have sufficed, either of the acts is an actual cause of the injury if it was a "substantial factor" in bringing it about
      - Unascertainable causes: when two acts were negligent but it is not clear which was the actual cause of the injury, the burden shifts to each of the negligent actors to show that his negligent act was not the actual cause
  - - - Pure comparative negligence: (on MBE this is the default unless told otherwise) Plaintiff can recover even if 99% at fault. Reduce plaintiff’s recovery by % of plaintiff’s fault.
      - If plaintiff is 90% at fault will recover 10
      - IF plaintiff is 20, will recover 80
      - Modified comparative negligence: Plaintiff cannot recover if more than 50% at fault
      - Contributory Negligence: Plaintiff cannot recover if at fault (common law)
      - Defense to Negligence: P has failed to establish the elements of negligence.
      - Assumption of Risk