Tort Law

Tort reform is very controversial issue. From the plaintiff’s perspective, tort reforms seems to take liability away from places such as insurance companies and hospitals which could at times leave the plaintiff without defense. From the defendant’s perspective, tort reform provides a defense from extremely large punitive damage awards. There seems to be no median between the two. Neither side will be satisfied. With the help of affiliations such as the American Tort Reform Association and Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, many businesses and corporations are working to change the current tort system to stop these high cash awards.

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.

The first case that is discussed is Liebeck v. McDonald’s Rests or “Hot Coffee” as it is well known for. Stella Liebeck suffered immense burn damage on her thighs when a coffee from McDonald spilled over her legs. She needed a surgical operation called skin graft, where a piece of healthy skin is transplanted to a new site on the body, and other medical assistance that reach over $100,000. She and her family tried to reach McDonals to get a settlement for the damages, but was welcomed with denial and lack of cooperation in settlements and coverage for medical expenses, so the family decided to sue the company for gross negligence.

Since about the mid-late 1980’s many states have implemented and enforced statutes to limit tort lawsuits. Tort reform is the political term for redefining tort laws and reducing tort litigation, damages, compensation, and even amounts awarded (Quinn). The reformation of the nation’s tort system, or changing laws throughout a state dealing with injuries to a person or their property have done a lot more harm than good for consumers. While each tort reform law varies depending on the state, they all have one of the following goals in mind: “(1) to make it more difficult for injured people to file a lawsuit, (2) to make it more difficult for injured people to obtain a jury trial, (3) to place limits on the amount of money injured people receive in a lawsuit (Lane).”

Businesses could be held liable for negligent tort if their product injury, harms consumers or is falsely represented. Nonetheless, when the circumstances warrant, parties that are not guilty of negligence or an unintentional tort can still be subjected to compensations when their products injure customers (Seaquist, 2012) Recall Negligence is an unintentional tort wherein one party is injured result to some actions of another. There are certain factors that must be considered to determines whether a corporation acted negligently. The elements are the following: a breach of that duty, legal duty to use due care, a reasonable close causal connection between the breach and the plaintiffs resulting in injury, and the actual loss or damage to the plaintiff. This paper is going to discuss a negligent tort due to a company’s recall of its product. The company may be considered liable for negligence if there was no recall on their product and the product caused bodily harm to a consumer (Benjamin, 2015). Throughout the paper will discuss the reason of Toshiba recalling their laptop computer battery packs due to burn and because of its potential to catch fire on March 30, 2016 and the recall number is 16-131. If the company did not make the decision to recall their laptop computer battery could have been diligent. To prove the negligent tort the consumer must prove factors such duty to care and defenses of negligence (Seaquist, 2012).

Loss of chance is known as an alternative cause of action, particularly, in cases of medical negligence. In recent cases, where actions based on causation have failed, it has succeeded. The onus lies on the plaintiff to prove negligence by the defendant and loss of a chance of a better outcome. However, a plaintiff cannot establish that the defendant’s negligence probably caused their injury. The concept of loss of chance is defined as a doctrine that permits the recovery of damages upon destruction or reduction of prospects to ultimately achieve a more favorable outcome. In one particular case, Rufo v Hosking [2002], the court found, “In order to recover damages for the loss of a chance of a better outcome, the plaintiff is required to prove on the balance of probabilities that there did exist a chance that the plaintiff would have had a better outcome had the negligence in treatment not occurred”. This is where the qualitative concept of loss of chance was described and formed.

This Article will address a wide variety of arguments for and against tort reform, and will discuss possible solutions to improve the current tort system. My purpose in writing this Article is not to offer a definitive solution to the tort reform debate, but instead to accurately present and analyze tort reform issues in the hope that someday a "wise agreement"7 will be negotiated that meets the needs of all parties involved in the tort

It is a hot summer day, and Bob is traveling home after a long day at work. The air-conditioning in the car is broken, and he is musing about his argument with his boss earlier. Distracted by the heat of the day, he darts through a red light, and sees another driver racing toward his right. He attempts to slam on his brakes, but is unable to avoid the impending collision. Tragic scenes like these occur around the world every day. A person’s life could be ended or forever changed by another’s unintentional negligence. If Bob was taken to civil court for his actions, he could be forced to cover the cost of any harms inflicted on others during the incident. Legal experts use the word tort to describe harms like these. The laws that govern how torts are handled in the court systems of America have been under severe attack in recent years. Many groups have successfully lobbied several state legislatures into making reforms to their tort laws. Unfortunately, even though many of these reforms are established with the best of intentions, legislators at times make spontaneous, illogical decisions as reactions to current problems. Often these extemporaneous decisions lead to substantive problems. Therefore, it should be stated that current tort reform is insufficient for the needs of society.

Negligent companies who don’t care about the well being of individuals but themselves are harming the community in the most brutal way. Argo Motors and PG&E were the perfect examples of Tort Law and negligence because they cared more about making more profit off their companies and not the well being of people; leading to extreme measures such as hiding evidence and scheming on how to get away with it. In this analysis, I will talk about the Class Action and Erin Brockovich cases, two cases that took a toll when people were severely injured causing death by failing to act with reasonable care.

In week three we were provided with two scenarios and were asked to analyze the tort actions found in both. The first scenario involves fans and participants at a football game; including a father and son, and angry fan, stadium workers, and other spectators. Actions that transpire include the spilling of beer on one fan by another, a shove of one fan of anther, a fall, injury, yelling, and repercussions of the stated actions.

Negligence cases and their analyses have dominated our judicial system from its very inception. This can be attributed to the human need to find fault and administer blame for wrong-doings and the mere fact that committing negligence is so simple one may not even realize that it is being committed until one is served with court documents. For example, pretend your home has a very steep step leading to the front door. You are aware of this – after all, you live there – but you want to ensure the safety of all visitors to your home. Suppose each day you place a sign by the driveway that states, “Caution! Beware of steep step;” however, one day you decide to take a vacation and decide that is unnecessary to put the sign out for the duration

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

Can you elect to recover your damages from the resort only, even though Tex and Rex were primarily responsible for your injuries?

Punitive damages are about “how the damages occurred” and not about the amount or type of damages that occurred.”

Critique on “Damages” as a remedy for breach of contract under Indian, American, English and Chinese law.