Ch.12 - Torts

Defenses to wrongful Interference

-A person will not be liable for the tort of wrongful interference with a contractual or business relationship if it can be shown that the interference was justified or permissible. Bona fide competitive behavior—through aggressive marketing and advertising strategies, for instance—is a permissible interference even if it results in the breaking of a contract.

**Intentional Torts

-An intentional tort, as the term implies, requires intent. The tortfeasor (the one committing the tort) must intend to commit an act, the consequences of which interfere with another's personal or business interests in a way not permitted by law. An evil or harmful motive is not required—in fact, the person committing the action may even have a beneficial motive for doing what turns out to be a tortious act.

Causation

-Another element necessary to a negligence action is causation. If a person breaches a duty of care and someone suffers injury, the person's act must have caused the harm for it to constitute the tort of negligence. 1. Causation in fact: usually can be determined by use of the but for test: "but for" the wrongful act, the injury would not have occurred. 2. Was the act the proximate, or legal, cause of the injury? Proximate cause, or legal cause, exists when the connection between an act and an injury is strong enough to justify imposing liability.

Assault

-Assault: any intentional and unexcused threat of immediate harmful or offensive contact—words or acts that create a reasonably believable threat.

Battery

-Battery:an unexcused and harmful or offensive physical contact intentionally performed.

**Business Torts

-Business torts generally involve wrongful interference with another's business rights.

Wrongful interference with Business Relationship

-Businesspersons devise countless schemes to attract customers. They are prohibited, however, from unreasonably interfering with another's business in their attempts to gain a greater share of the market.

The Duty of Care and its Breach

-Central to the tort of negligence is the concept of a duty of care. The basic principle underlying the duty of care is that people are free to act as they please so long as their actions do not infringe on the interests of others.

Negligence Per se

-Certain conduct, whether it consists of an action or a failure to act, may be treated as negligence per se ("in or of itself"). Negligence per se may occur if an individual violates a statute or an ordinance providing for a criminal penalty and that violation causes another to be injured.

Damages available in Tort Actions

-Compensatory Damages:to compensate or reimburse the plaintiff for actual losses. -Punitive Damages: to punish the wrongdoer and deter others from similar wrongdoing. Punitive damages are appropriate only when the defendant's conduct was particularly egregious (reprehensible).

Conversion

-Conversion: is the civil side of crimes related to theft, but it is not limited to theft. Even when the rightful owner consented to the initial taking of the property, so no theft or trespass occurred, a failure to return the property may still be conversion. -Any act that deprives an owner of personal property or of the use of that property without the owner's permission and without just cause can constitute conversion.

Defamation

-Defamation: of character involves wrongfully hurting a person's good reputation. The law imposes a general duty on all persons to refrain from making false, defamatory statements of fact about others. -Breaching this duty in writing or in another permanent form (such as a digital recording) involves the tort of libel. -Breaching this duty orally involves the tort of slander. To establish defamation, a plaintiff normally must prove the following: 1. The defendant made a false statement of fact. 2. The statement was understood as being about the plaintiff and tended to harm the plaintiff's reputation. 3. The statement was published to at least one person other than the plaintiff. 4. If the plaintiff is a public figure, she or he must prove actual malice (discussed on Defenses to Defamation).

Disparagement of Property

-Disparagement of property occurs when economically injurious falsehoods are made about another's product or property rather than about another's reputation (as in the tort of defamation). -Disparagement of property is a general term for torts that can be more specifically referred to as slander of quality or slander of title. -Slander of Quality: The publication of false information about another's product, alleging that it is not what its seller claims -Slander of Title:When a publication falsely denies or casts doubt on another's legal ownership of property, resulting in financial loss to the property's owner

False Imprisonment

-False Imprisonment: the intentional confinement or restraint of another person's activities without justification. False imprisonment interferes with the freedom to move without restraint.

Fraudulent Representation

-Fraud, involves intentional deceit for personal gain. The tort includes several elements: 1. A misrepresentation of material facts or conditions with knowledge that they are false or with reckless disregard for the truth. 2. An intent to induce another party to rely on the misrepresentation. 3. A justifiable reliance on the misrepresentation by the deceived party. 4. Damages suffered as a result of that reliance. 5. A causal connection between the misrepresentation and the injury suffered.

Tort Reform

-Measures to reduce the number of tort cases can include any of the following: 1. Limiting the amount of both punitive damages and general damages that can be awarded. 2. Capping the amount that attorneys can collect in contingency fees (attorneys' fees that are based on a percentage of the damages awarded to the client—see Chapter 2). 3. Requiring the losing party to pay both the plaintiff's and the defendant's expenses. 4. Federal and State reforms

Good Samaritan Statutes

-Most states now have laws that are called Good Samaritan statutes.Under these statutes, someone who is aided voluntarily by another cannot turn around and sue the "Good Samaritan" for negligence.

Palsgraf Case

-Palsgraf sues after being injured at a train station when an unmarked package was dropped by the guard and caused debris to fall injuring her. -Trial court found the guards were acting in negligence which was appealed. -Appellate court found that the guards were not acting in negligence toward Palsgraf due to the unforeseeability of the event

**Intentional Torts against Property

-Real property is land and things permanently attached to the land, such as a house. -Personal property consists of all other items, including cash and securities (stocks, bonds, and other ownership interests in companies).

Intentional infliction of Emotional Distress

-The tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress involves an intentional act that amounts to extreme and outrageous conduct resulting in severe emotional distress to another. -To be actionable (capable of serving as the ground for a lawsuit), the act must be extreme and outrageous to the point that it exceeds the bounds of decency accepted by society.

**Unintentional Torts

-The tort of negligence occurs when someone suffers injury because of another's failure to live up to a required duty of care. In contrast to intentional torts, in torts involving negligence, the tortfeasor neither wishes to bring about the consequences of the act nor believes that they will occur. -To succeed in a negligence action, the plaintiff must prove each of the following: 1. Duty. The defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. 2. Breach. The defendant breached that duty. 3. Causation. The defendant's breach caused the plaintiff's injury. 4. Damages. The plaintiff suffered a legally recognizable injury.

Trepass to Land & Property

-Trespass to land: occurs when a person, without permission, does any of the following: 1. Enters onto, above, or below the surface of land that is owned by another. 2. Causes anything to enter onto land owned by another. 3. Remains on land owned by another or permits anything to remain on it. -Defense:A licensee is one who is invited (or allowed to enter) onto the property of another for the licensee's benefit. -Trespass to personal property: Whenever any individual wrongfully takes or harms the personal property of another or otherwise interferes with the lawful owner's possession and enjoyment of personal property

Defenses to Defamation

-Truth is normally an absolute defense against a defamation charge. In other words, if a defendant in a defamation case can prove that the allegedly defamatory statements of fact were true, normally no tort has been committed. Public figures are fair game for defamatory statements unless they are made with actual Malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth). Not liable for defamatory statements if have priveledge.

Purpose of Tort Law

-Two notions serve as the basis of all torts: wrongs and compensation. Tort law is designed to compensate those who have suffered a loss or injury due to another person's wrongful act.

Defenses to Negligence

1. Assumption of Risk: knowledge of risk, voluntary assumption of the risk 2. Contributory Negligence: All individuals are expected to exercise a reasonable degree of care in looking out for themselves. In the past, under the common law doctrine of contributory negligence, a plaintiff who was also negligent (failed to exercise a reasonable degree of care) could not recover anything from the defendant. Under this rule, no matter how insignificant the plaintiff's negligence was relative to the defendant's negligence, the plaintiff would be precluded from recovering any damages. Today, only a few jurisdictions still hold to this doctrine. 3. Comparative Negligence: In most states, the doctrine of contributory negligence has been replaced by a comparative negligence standard. Under this standard, both the plaintiff's and the defendant's negligence are computed, and the liability for damages is distributed accordingly. Some jurisdictions have adopted a "pure" form of comparative negligence that allows the plaintiff to recover, even if the extent of his or her fault is greater than that of the defendant.

Invasion of Privacy

1. Intrusion into an individual's affairs or seclusion. Invading someone's home or searching someone's briefcase or laptop without authorization is an invasion of privacy. 2. False light. Publication of information that places a person in a false light is also an invasion of privacy. 3. Public disclosure of private facts. This type of invasion of privacy occurs when a person publicly discloses private facts about an individual that an ordinary person would find objectionable or embarrassing. 4. Appropriation of identity. Using a person's name, picture, likeness, or other identifiable characteristic for commercial purposes without permission is also an invasion of privacy.

Wrongful interference with Contractual Relationship

Three elements are necessary for wrongful interference with a contractual relationship to occur: 1. A valid, enforceable contract must exist between two parties. 2. A third party must know that this contract exists. 3. This third party must intentionally induce a party to the contract to breach the contract.