Question No. 1
Case
Does Bonsoy soy milk manufacturer or distributor have had any liability to the Australian consumers in the tort of negligence?
Set of laws
Tort: A tort is a civil wrong which is done by one party to another. As a result of this, the person who is suffered or injured can take civil action against another party. The law of torts provide the rules and regulation to the society. If these rules and regulations are breached the person is liable for remedies (usually monetary). According to P. Latimer; after the successful test case of Donoghue v Stevenson in 1932, where the plaintiff getting sick after drinking a contaminated drink, negligence is tort which now dominates modern tort law.
Negligence: Civil Liability Act 2002 – Sect 5 states that, “negligence” means failure to exercise reasonable care and skill. (AustLII, 2015) If the plaintiff is suffered damage or loss by defendant, the plaintiff can sue the defendant for the loss occurred due to negligence of the defendant. There are three basic fundamental steps to prove negligence under the Civil Liability Act that the plaintiff must be able to prove:
Duty of care: There is a duty to full fill in the conditions
Breach of duty: The action of the defendant in the conditions did not meet set level of standard of care
Damage: The plaintiff has suffered damage or loss due to the conditions which could have been foreseen. (Hobart Community Legal Service Inc., 2013)
It does not mean that there would
A tort is an act of wrong doing to one in the absence of a contract. The wrong doing occurs when there is a breach of duty, that is, when one has been inattentive to act in a reasonable manner. The wrong doing or wrongful act must cause loss or injury in order to be acknowledged as a tort. Furthermore, a tort is not necessarily a crime, but depending on the wrongful act committed, could be considered both a tort and a crime, such as when one is physically attacked. A tort is treated as a civil wrong, is used to more or less, make amends to the individual victim via compensation; punitive damages may also be assessed. A crime is considered a public wrong, a breach of duty to the general public, resulting in criminal action being taken by the state, which may include punishment via incarceration. (McAdams, 2015, p. 278).
Negligence is upholding a certain leavel of care by determining if it meets the four components nessessary for a claim; duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages. In this case duty was not handled correctly. Duty means you agree to take care of a health care patients. THe girls working at the Good Samaritan Home did not take proper care of the residents. Breach of duty is broken down into four categories; Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance. In this case the breach of duty refers to nonfeasance. There was a failure to act, by no other employees bringing the ause to attention. Causation requires an injury to be due to the healthcare professionals negligence. In the case of abuse in the Good Samaritan case there was no other way the injuries could have happened. The damages refers to the injuries caused to the residents.
The Tort of Negligence put the claimant in the position to prove that the defendant owed to them a duty of care, the defendant breached that duty and the claimant must have suffered damages as result of that breach (Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC562).
Negligence is the failure to do something. Many medical cases are filed as medical malpractice suits, “medical malpractice is professional misconduct. Malpractice differs from negligence because it is performed by a license medical professional” (Flight 2). The case of Horton V. Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center can be used as a primary example where negligence, “failure to take reasonable precautions to protect others from the risk of harm” (Flight 33), is visible.
Contributory Negligence: A court may find a plaintiff contributory negligent or partially responsible for their injuries.
Tort: A “Civil Wrong” Torts refer to a general classification covering civil causes of action
Torts are civil laws that are broken and are rules for lawsuits. When these rules are broken they can result in injury and harm this is usually the basis for the claim. Torts are punishable by imprisonment but in most cases tort law is to provide relief for damages and to stop others from doing the same thing. The injured party can sue for loss of earnings, pain and suffering, and medical expenses or present and future.
A tort is wrongful interference against a person or property, other than breaches of contract, for which the courts can rectify through legal action. The reform effort is aimed at reducing the number of unnecessary lawsuits that burden the court system while still allowing injured parties compensation when they’ve been wronged. This latest effort at tort reform has given rise to the same spirited rhetoric that might be found in a courtroom.
Tort Law is a form of Civil Law and is different than Criminal Law, as it does not seek to punish the wrongdoer, but rather to pay damages to remedy a wrong. A Tort cannot happen without harm occurring. One who has committed a Tort has broken a law against an individual. Typically, damages are paid to the individual in order to make them “whole” and in an effort to make good on their wrongdoings.
In Caparo Industries plc v Dickman7, it was determined that courts had to test the duty by “whether the damage was reasonably foreseeable, whether there was a relationship of proximity between claimant and defendant, and whether it is just and reasonable to impose a duty.”8 If so, then a duty of care could arise.
Tort Law: A right of a private citizen to take legal action against an entity or human if harm has been caused. The issue within the legal action does not have to be against the law. The primary goal of tort law is to require financial compensation to the individuals that have been harmed and deter future similar actions to happen.
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
Presented are four separate cases that have been argued and settled in a court of law. Each of these cases represent a different kind of tort, a tort is a civil wrong or wrongful act, which can be either intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another (Hill & Hill n.d.). The torts are as listed, intentional, criminal, negligence, and liability as presented in the four researched cases.
Negligence is the failure to exercise due care or diligence that a reasonable or prudent man would exercise in similar circumstances. The law of negligence falls under tort law where it involves harm that is caused by carelessness and not intentional harm (Katter, 2002). A tort is a civil wrong that is in the form of a breach of duty, which amounts to legal remedy that is awarded in damages. Tort law rests upon two principles that state that an act or omission by the defendant interferes with the rights of the plaintiff, which in turn causes damages (Trindade, 2007). Secondly, the interference caused by the defendant gives rise to a cause of action for damages that are as near as possible to the plaintiff’s loss. Therefore, negligence can be defined as doing something that a reasonable man would not have done in similar circumstances or failure to do what a reasonable man would have done which amounts to infliction of harm.
This case begins with a Chinese company, the Sanlu Group, who was purchasing milk for use in its baby formula. Over time employees of the Sanlu Group discovered the milk their company was purchasing, was tainted with melamine (Crandall et al., 2014). Melamine is a product generally used to make plastics and laminates. Unfortunately, management personnel working for the Sanlu Group was unaware of the tainted substance being illegally added to the milk. However, the melamine product is a life threatening product that can cause kidney stones and renal failure once it is consumed. Although the melamine boosted the protein rating of the milk, it was illegally added to the milk (Crandall et al., 2014).