Case Briefs

Duty of Care: best interest; defensible decision making; contextualising behaviour; identification of positive and negative risks

The Civil Liabilities Act 2002 defines negligence as a failure on the part of the defendant which results in the harm of the plaintiff which could have been prevented by taking reasonable care. The breach of duty must be foreseeable, Sullivan v Moody. The risk must be not insignificant, and a reasonable person under similar circumstances would have taken precaution against the harm. In this case

Many accidents that occur in the wilderness happen because of people’s lack of good decisions, and the cost of the rescue can put other people’s lives in danger. Making unnecessary risks to save someone in a situation that never had to happen is why people should be held accountable for their actions in a life-or-death situation. However, many other people think that they shouldn’t be held accountable. Both perspectives think that their argument is right, but the facts are clear: people should be held accountable for their actions, you should be responsible for what you choose to do.

In Rebecca & ‘Zorba’s’ Restaurant case, the main issue is whether negligence exists of the defendant? There are three prerequisites must be present before the tort of negligence can arise: a duty of care must be owed by one person to another; there must be a breach of that duty of care; and damage must have been suffered as a result of the breach of duty. (FoBL, 2005, p70) In addition, another element must be satisfied to prove negligence is the causation. This essay will analysis Rebecca v. ‘Zorba’s’ with these four issues.

Statement of Assignment: You have asked me to prepare a legal memorandum on the question of whether our client can gain relief from intentional infliction of emotional distress occurring from witnessing a friend¡¦s child being injured by a vehicle that is out of control due to being driven at a high rate of speed through a school zone. Pursuant to your request, this memo includes an analysis of the relevant state and federal law.

In order to state a claim for IIED, a plaintiff must allege “intentional or reckless” conduct. Lasater, 194 Md. App. at 448. “To meet the ‘intentional or reckless’ criterion of the first element, the plaintiff must allege and prove that the defendant either desired to inflict severe emotional distress, knew that such distress was certain or substantially certain to result from his conduct, or acted recklessly in deliberate disregard of a high degree of probability that the emotional distress will follow. Floor, 78 Md. App. at 175 (emphases in original); see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 8A (““Intentional” when used in this context means “the actor desires to cause consequences of his act, or that he believes that the consequences are substantially certain to result from it.”); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 500 (“If he does an act or intentionally fails to do an act which it is his duty to the other to do, knowing or having reason to know of facts which would lead a reasonable man to realize, not only that his conduct creates an unreasonable risk of physical harm to another, but also that such risk is substantially greater than that which is necessary to make his conduct

Benge, R v (1865) pre-SCJA 1873 D, a foreman platelayer misread the timetable as to when a train was to arrive. He placed a flagman at the wrong distance giving insufficient warning to the driver. A train left the rails at a spot where rails had been taken up and not replaced. The negligence was that D did not take the correct care to make sure he was working at the right time, when any reasonable person would have known how dangerous the job can be and to double check they are correct.

(c) Notwithstanding Subsection (b), an owner, lessee, or occupant of land may be liable for injury to a child caused by a highly dangerous artificial condition on the land if:

When this happens, a practitioner may find themselves in a dilemma between the duty of care they have for a child or young person, an individual rights of their parents or carers.

A seven-year-old boy followed his dog into Mr. Howe’s backyard. The boy fell into a large hole dug by Mr. Howe in preparation for a tree that had been ordered. The boy broke his arm in the fall. At the hospital a doctor employed there for four years treated the boy. The doctor did not set the boy’s arm because he failed to see on the x-ray and indication that the arm was broken. The arm healed improperly. When the boy kept complaining, his parents took him to the family doctor that discovered the break. The boy had his arm re-broken so that it could be set properly. On these facts, discuss the following:

In November 1960, Dorrence Darling II, a minor (Plaintiff) was brought in to the Charleston Community Memorial Hospital (Defendant) by his father, after breaking his leg during a football game. The on call Physician, Dr. Alexander (Defendant) tended to Darling in the emergency room. Dr. Alexander began by putting the leg in traction, setting the break, and applied a plaster cast. The next day Darling's toes had become dark, swollen and cold to the touch. Darling was in a great deal of pain and voiced this to the Dr. and attending nursing staff. Dr. Alexander made some adjustments to the cast around the toes to relieve some of the pressure.

The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress has four elements: 1. the defendant must act intentionally or recklessly; 2. the defendant's conduct must be extreme and outrageous; and 3. the conduct must be the cause 4. of severe emotional distress. This is exactly what happened din this case. Steve Steel not only knocked the phone out of Prudence’s hand but also broke down the door and threatened Prudence with force and made her scared for her life. I do believe that negligence is a part of this case. A person who engages in activities that pose an unreasonable risk toward others and their property that actually results in harm, breaches their duty of reasonable care. Steve Steel did not show a proper care of duty with Prudence. I think that Steve Steel should also be responsible for all of the physical and mental damages since he did not show reasonable care. I think the tort liability in this case would be assault and battery. An assault involves three things that we see in this case. An assault occurs when an intentional, unlawful threat or "offer" to cause bodily injury to another by force; under circumstances which create in the other person a well-founded fear of imminent peril; where there exists the apparent present ability to carry out the act if not prevented. A battery is the willful or intentional touching of a person against that person’s will by another person, or by an object or

Some individuals are obliged by the law to take action stop the crime from happening. One of the exceptions is when the defendant or the individual himself caused or created the peril. In other words, an individual must stop a crime, which was committed by his negligence. For example, the defendant threw a cigar butt, who caused a fire, in this case the defendant’s negligence caused a peril, if a person were to die because of the fire he would be criminally responsible. Another exception is when the defendant has a special relationship with the victim or contractual duties. The bond between the defendant and the victim can be of many sorts like family, patient and doctor, or company and employee. In each relationship, individuals have duties towards each other and if they do not fulfill the duties, which result into death or another crime, and then they can be criminally prosecuted. Lastly, when an individual or party has undertaken the rescue. This is when a couple assumes a duty of care towards there vulnerable relative they assume a duty of voluntary responsibility to look after him and take care of him, failing to do so they may be charged for criminal offence. Even though, individuals have the free will and are able to decide their actions, there are exceptions that force individuals to be held

We will thoroughly investigate the facts and details of the case in order to determine the cause of the injury, as well as establish who is at fault; subsequently allowing us to pursue the compensation necessary to cover the cost of caring for your child for the remainder of their

Torts of negligence are breaches of duty that results to injury to another person to whom the duty breached is owed. Like all other torts, the requirements for this are duty, breach of duty by the defendant, causation and injury(Stuhmcke and Corporation.E 2001). However, this form of tort differs from intentional tort as regards the manner the duty is breached. In torts of negligence, duties are breached by negligence and not by intent. Negligence is conduct that falls below the standard of care established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm(Stuhmcke and Corporation.E 2001). The standard measure of negligence is the universal reasonable person standard. The assumption in this case is that a reasonable