Torts MC

Natural law is to common law as common law is to

Statutes

The product of legislative action involving tort law is/are

Statutes

The significant difference between libel and slander is

the way that the statement was communicated

To prevail under a theory of strict liability for product liability, the plaintiff needs to allege that

there was a flaw in the product

According to vicarious liability, a principal could be liable for an agent's

tortious conduct

The tort of negligence exists because

"Accidents will happen"

If a judge finds a defendant liable and requires the defendant to report to prison, then the defendant has committed

A Crime

A legal proceeding intended "primarily to vindicate the individual victim" is known as

A Tort

Because of a big snowstorm, a group of people decide to go sledding, using giant innertubes. On the first run down a steep hill, the plaintiff slides farther than expected, into a parking lot, and hits a car, thereby getting injured. Which doctrine will bar any recovery for the injured plaintiff?

Assumption of the Risk

While repairing potholes on a road, a government worker leaves a tool. Plaintiff drives over the tool and suffers a flat tire and damaged rim. That worker will be found not liable at trial because of

Immunity

Under the common law, once a lessee occupies the premises, the lessor no longer has responsibility for the property except

ALL OF THE ABOVE A. to disclose concealed, dangerous conditions on the land. B. towards third persons as to dangerous conditions on the land. C. regarding premises leased for the public benefit D. regarding common areas under the lessor's control E. when having agreed to make repairs within a reasonable time.

From Thanksgiving to New Year's, defendant festoons defendant's house with so many holiday ecorations that people come from miles around to see it.When the plaintiff, a neighbor, sues in an action for nuisance, the plaintiff will need to show that the defendant

Acted unreasonably or that plaintiff suffered substantial harm

Among other things, to determine the duty of care owed, a court will look at the defendant's

Age

The concept of "Attractive Nuisance" can result in a landholder's liability to a trespassing child if

All of the Above: A. the landholder knows or has reason to know of a condition on the property which might cause children to trespass. B. the condition in "a"poses an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such a trespassing child. C. children of a certain age would not appreciate the risk associated with that condition. D. the landholder fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise protect the children. E. the benefit that the condition provides the landholder is small compared to the risk of harm the condition poses to the children

Having won at trial, the plaintiff wants to collect on the award of damages and asks the court to issue

An Execution

To prove nuisance of any kind, the plaintiff has to establish:

An Intentional Act

In the famous Palsgraf case, the court characterized the plaintiff as

An Unforeseeable Plaintiff

If a celebrity's face is put on a box of cereal, implying that the celebrity endorses the cereal, but the celebrity did not consent to the use of the celebrity's image, then the celebrity likely has an action in tort of the type of invasion of privacy known as

Appropriation

The idea that plaintiff has to mitigate damages is reflected in the concept of

Avoidable Consequences

Whether a cause of action exists for negligence per se will involve

B and C Only (?)

"A failure to uphold a reasonable duty" is known as

Breach

The underlying rationale for recovery under a warranty is

Breach of Promise

Primary authorities are to statutes as secondary authorities are to

Hornbooks

A lawyer for one of the parties to a lawsuit disagrees with a judge about allowing someone to serve as a juror. To find out what options exist to challenge that judge's decision, the lawyer would need to consult the rules of

Civil Procedure

A party can resist a request for answers to interrogatories by

Claiming Privilege

Falsely and intentionally claiming that a business called "Total Body Repairs" does not involve repairing damaged automobiles but the selling of soaps and lotions would most likely give rise to a cause of action for

Commercial Disparagement

If a defendant falsely says that Mohorovic Tires actually doesn't sell car tires, then the defendant could face liability for

Commericial Disparagement

Judicial review of tort law will result in the creation of

Case Law

To initiate a lawsuit, a plaintiff has to file a

Complaint

A child plays in a youth hockey league. To play, the child signs a waiver of liability. During a game, the child receives a hard check into the boards and gets a broken arm and sues the league for damages. The league cites to the waiver and says that it is not liable because of

Consent

The plaintiff enters a very crowded subway car and has an unpleasant ride, so the plaintiff sues the subway line for pain and suffering because the subway line chose to put out too few cars for each of its trains. The plaintiff's claim will likely fail because the subway line can claim as a defense

Consent

If a person wants to file suit for a violation of civil rights, that person would need to look at

Constitution

If the plaintiff is found 5% liable for the damages that arose out of an accident that involved the defendant, and the plaintiff cannot recover any damages, then this is because of the doctrine of

Contributory Negligence

The defendant rents out equipment to go windsurfing. The plaintiff signs a release indicating that the plaintiff understands that windsurfing involves a risk of injury, and goes out on the water. A sudden gust of wind causes the boom of the sail to come around and hit the plaintiff so hard as to break several of the plaintiff's ribs. If the plaintiff sues the defendant, the plaintiff will lose because of the doctrine of

Contributory Negligence

The concept that the principal can dictate to the agent how the agent can best serve the interests of the principal is called

Control

Historically, a breach of "the King's peace" involved

Crime

Part of the purpose of tort law is to undo the effects of a defendant's tortious conduct. To that end, courts award

Damages

Trying to discourage a defendant from again engaging in tortious conduct means practicing a policy of

Deterrence

If a plaintiff cannot sell land because of what defendant has said, then plaintiff has a cause of action in

Disparagement of Title

The harm to plaintiff because of a nuisance caused by a defendant can include

Economic Loss

A critical element for an action for trespass to land is

Entry

Besides torts providing a plaintiff a remedy at law, a plaintiff might also have a remedy available in

Equity

One way that a jurisdiction can determine whether an animal is domesticated or wild is to ask

Has the animal been used in service to humanity?

A defendant can claim the defense of necessity only if the risk of injury to the plaintiff was

Imminent

A government may be found liable at trial if it has abrogated its defense of

Immunity

A police officer uses deadly force to stop a robber from firing into a crowd. The officer's best defense to escape liability is one rooted in

Immunity

Police officers break up a protest by using hitting protesters a few times with police batons. When a protester sues the police because of excessive use of force, the police will have available to them the defense of

Immunity

The head of a state's department of public roadways decides to use eminent domain to take property so as to make a new interchange. The owner of the property sues the department head for an abuse of discretion as to the placing of the interchange. That department head should not expect to face liability due to the defense of

Immunity

The notion that a government could not be found liable for an action in tort was rooted in the concept of

Immunity

What defense will excuse a defendant's liability if the defendant was acting in an official capacity at the time that the plaintiff was injured?

Immunity

At trial, if a party wants to contest the admission into evidence certain information, then that party files a motion

In Limine

To make out a valid claim for alienation of affection, a plaintiff needs to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, what?

Intent

A landholder as a duty to inspect the property to discover dangers with respect to

Invitees

If a plaintiff claims that three defendants are liable for the plaintiff's injuries, but one dies before trial, the plaintiff could recover damages from the other two defendants because of

Joint and Several Liability

If a court was to examine a newly-enacted statute, to determine the validity of that law, that process involves

Judicial Review

A judge tells a jury about the law(s) involved in a particular law suit by issuing

Jury Instructions

A landholder has different duties to people entering the property depending on the nature of the entry. Regarding the three classes of entrants onto property, state the degree of duty owned.

Least-Trespassers Intermediate- Licensees Most- Invitees

What kind of authority could a paralegal consult to gain insight into the meaning of a law?

Legal Treatises

A friend invited over to a landholder's home to watch a football game on TV is a(n)

Licensee

Family members, on landholder's property, who are attending a birthday party, accidentally get injured due to a danger that the landholder knows exists on the property. The landholder's standard of care owed to the family members is that owed to a

Licensee

If a community hosts a ________ it will enjoy immunity from suit.

Local Court

If a defendant deprives a family of the companionship of a child, then the parents likely will get a recovery for

Loss of Consortium

A trained surgeon asks that a first-year medical student suture up a patient. When the student does so poor a job as to cause injury to the patient, the patient sues the student and the surgeon, under a theory of vicarious liability. At trial, the surgeon will

Lost, because caring for a patient is a non-delegable duty

Ensnaring a plaintiff in a baseless criminal action may lead to the plaintiff's filing suit for

Malicious Prosecution

If a defendant loses a lawsuit, then the defendant has a right to

Mandatory Appellate Review

If a plaintiff is filing a claim in negligence over the safety and quality of a product, the plaintiff can sue the seller and the

Manufacturer

To measure the amount of harm allegedly caused by defendant's nuisance, plaintiff will need to meet what kind of standard?

None; plaintiff needs only to establish liability by a preponderance of the evidence

A pedestrian is about to be hit by a speeding car. The defendant tackles the pedestrian, who avoids getting hit by the car but who suffers a broken arm. When the pedestrian sues the defendant, defendant will claim the defense of

Necessity

When a state decides to take several homes through an exercise of eminent domain, the owners decide to challenge this exercise of discretion in Federal Court. Will the homeowners win?

No

Li is mowing the lawn, and slips on some wet grass, so that the mower hits and kills a neighbor's pet. When sued, Li hopes to avoid liability by claiming never to have imagined that a lawn mower could cause such damage. Will this argument successfully defeat a claim of negligence?

No, because Li should be expected to know that wet grass is slippery

A lessor discovers that the lessee abandoned the leased property some weeks earlier. In that time, vermin infests the property. The lessor empties the place of all of the lessee's possessions and destroys those items that cannot be sanitized to rid the property of the vermin. When the lessee seeks damages to recover the cost of replace the lessee's destroy possessions, the lessor most likely will raise the defense of

Private Necessity

A wildfire is threatening the property of defendant's neighbor. The defendant douses the neighbor's property with enough water to save the house, but the water drains into the neighbor's cellar and damages items kept there. If the neighbor sues the defendant, the defendant can raise a defense of

Private Necessity

Defendant operates a low-wattage radio station in the neighborhood, which interferes only with the plaintiff's watching of television during the station's operation.The plaintiff seems to have a cause of action in

Private Nuisance

As a matter of social policy, courts will not find a defendant liable in tort if the defendant was acting to avoid a greater harm. That's why the courts recognize the defense of

Privilege

Defendant sees undercover police officers trying to subdue an escaped inmate. The defendant runs to the rescue of the inmate, hitting the police officers but not succeeding in disabling them. When the police officers sue defendant for their injuries, the defendant will most likely raise the defense of

Privilege

If a landholder repels an invader through the use of force, the landholder can avoid liability by claiming

Privilege

The defendant sees that the plaintiff is about to hit another patron at the bar with an empty mug, so the defendant swings a chair at plaintiff. This avoids injury to the patron but results in the plaintiff suffering a broken hand. A court decides against holding defendant liable for plaintiff's injuries due to the defense of

Privilege

The recognition of the possibility of an action in negligence by the court in the famous MacPherson case meant that the plaintiff had an opportunity to recover damages, an opportunity that had been foreclosed under the old rule of

Privity of Contract

Those rules, created with the intention of conducting trials consistently, are known as rules of

Procedure

Because hurricane-force winds threaten to destroy an abandoned house and scatter debris in a manner that endangers everyone in the vicinity, a state emergency services team tears it down. The owner of the property sues the government on the grounds that this was done without the owner's permission. The emergency services team will escape liability due to

Public Necessity

To lighten a passenger plane which is coming perilously close to hitting some trees, the captain of the plane orders the crew to eject all luggage. Doing so lightens the plane so that the captain can gain enough altitude to bring the plane to its destination. If passengers on that flight sue the airline for damages due to the loss of luggage, the airline likely will avoid liability by claiming the defense of

Public Necessity

Another way of talking about strict liability is to

Refer to it as absolute liability

Rules of evidence provide the means for a judge to assess the nature of evidence. These rules, then, aid a judge in determining whether information should be accepted as evidence because it is

Reliable

A strong wind gust blows through the doors to a warehouse-style store. It knocks over paint cans kept on an upper level shelf, one of which hits the plaintiff. The store's best argument for escaping liability would be to

Show that this was an unavoidable accident

According to Professor Keaton, the principle underlying the development of tort law involves

Social Responsibility

If a plaintiff cannot secure compensation under a theory of intentional tort or of negligence, the plaintiff might still have recourse under

Strict Liability

Location of a courthouse is to venue as filing suit in the right type of court is to

Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Service of process involves a

Summons and Complaint

The duty of care owed, in general, is

That of a Prudent Person

If a defendant has been adjudged to be insane, then what is the standard of care that defendant must practice?

That of a Reasonable Person

Defendant has been drinking heavily, gets behind the wheel of an automobile, goes out for a drive, and gets into an accident. If the victim in the accident sues defendant, then what duty of care will the defendant's conduct be measured against?

That of a reasonable person

Another way of defining a "cause at law" is to call it

The "but-for" rule

The rule that defines proximate causation broadly is known as

The "substantial factor" rule

If there is a difference between the tort of fraud and the crime of fraud, it is

The Burden of Proof

The difference between trespass and trespass to chattels is

The nature of the property

Hall v Duke is important because it shows that

There are fewer duties owned by a landholder to licensees than to invitees

A domesticated animal is as to cat as a wild animal is to

Tiger

A defendant who has been found to be liable and who is ordered by a court to pay damages has committed a

Tort

If a difference exists between disparagement of title and commercial disparagement, it involves

What the defendant has disparaged

To evaluate whether an agent has gone beyond the scope of employment, a court might look at

Whether the agent was working during normal business hours

A court might assess evidence on the issue of proximate causation by determining what?

Whether the defendant could have reasonably foreseen that plaintiff could suffer injury

The level of care that a landholder owes to a licensee regarding a danger that the landholder does not know exists on the property is the same as that owed to a

Trespasser

The body of law that most states have independently adopted which addresses the sale of goods for more than $500 is called the

UCC

If the defendant's above-ground pool bursts, flooding a neighbor's property and destroying the neighbor's flower beds, the defendant most likely will be found liable

Under a theory of strict liability

Jury selection is a process known as

Vior Dire

A tort significantly differs from a crime as to

Who is the party that starts the lawsuit

Often, when a court has to determine whether a lawsuit is an action in private nuisance or public nuisance, the court will look at what?

Who was most affected by the alleged nuisance

Seduction is to an unmarried, underage girl as criminal conversation is to a:

Wife

The defendant, trained and certified in providing emergency medical care, is out jogging and comes upon the scene of an accident. Too caught up in what the defendant has to do that day, the defendant fails to stop and offer assistance. Will the defendant be found liable in negligence?

Yes, because the defendant failed to fulfill a duty of providing emergency medical assistance

BigBoxStore sells The Universal Communicator, a new type of telecommunication device, but does not know that the battery can melt the internal circuitry on rare occasions. A purchaser has the misfortune of buying a Universal Communicator that does in fact, melt down. When filing suit for negligence against BigBoxStore, the purchaser could allege that a breach of duty involved

a failure to detect a defect

BigBoxStore receives complaints from customers that The Universal Communicator, which it sells, has a tendency to meltdown. It decides to settle any claims that customers make but continues to sell the device. If a purchaser instead decides to sue BigBoxStore for negligence, the purchaser could allege that the breach of duty involved

a failure to warn about the devices tendency to melt down

Vicarious liability would arise when there was

a master and a servant

A government may enjoy immunity from suit when operating ________ but not when operating ________.

a police department; an electrical company

If defendant cuts down a tree so as to prevent the use of plaintiff's driveway, then the defendant likely has committed

a private nuisance

If a defendant cuts down a tree so that it blocks a busy road, then the defendant has likely committed

a public nuisance

Whether a defendant's willful, wanton and reckless conduct caused injury to the plaintiff involved

a question of fact

To evaluate an assertion of the defense of mistake, the jury will need to determine that the defendant

acted as a reasonable person would under the circumstances

If a cult convinces a spouse to join, the other spouse is most likely win a law suit against the cult on which common law theory?

alienation of affection

A river overflows its banks, flooding the basement of a nearby house. To avoid liability, the carrier of the flood insurance policy for the house most likely will claim that since the river had never before overflown its banks, this involved

an Act of God

A principal is least likely to be found liable for the torts of an agent if the agent is

an independent contractor

Another way to think of a nuisance is to consider it to be

an interference with the use or enjoyment of property

A statement will not be a valid basis for an action in defamation if it is

an opinion

To make out a claim in private nuisance, plaintiff has to

be at least the possessor of the property

Defendant is deemed not liable until plaintiff shows that defendant should be found liable. Plaintiff can rebut this presumption by most easily establishing liability

by a preponderance of evidence

Instead of establishing that an injury is trivial, a plaintiff must show that the injury

caused substantial harm

A customer purchases a cup of coffee at the take-out window of an international fast food chain. The restaurant makes the coffee as hot as possible, short of turning it into steam, because most people who get coffee at a take out window will wait before drinking it. The customer goes to a car, and puts the coffee between the customer's legs, so as to be able to wrench the lid off the coffee cup. This causes the coffee to splash onto the customer's pants, which results in third degree burns. The customer sues in negligence, alleging that the restaurant breached a duty of care. The restaurant might be able to escape liability because of the customer's

contributory negligence

The court in the famous Rylands case held the owner of an artificial reservoir responsible in damages under a theory of strict liability because

creating a reservoir is an inherently dangerous activity

A town operates a beach at a public lake. A child drowns in the lake. The community can

not avoid liability

______________ exist(s) because it would be unfair to hold a defendant liable in tort in certain situations

defenses

Society allows for the mistake defense in many cases because a mistake means defendant

did not have the guilty mind

One way sellers can limit the scope of a claim for breach of warranty is to

disclaim any warranties

An employer has signed a contract to take out minerals from a mine. At the mine, an employee decides that the best way to get at the minerals involved blasting. The employee properly sets the dynamite charge, but the resulting blast causes property damage to an adjacent property. If that property owner sues, the employer likely will be liable in vicarious liability because

dynamite is a dangerous instrumentality

By making out a prima facie case, plaintiff has

established defendant's liability by a preponderance of evidence

The defendant gets into an automobile accident with the plaintiff. Since the drivers have registered their cars in a state that mandates that all automobiles on the road have insurance, the plaintiff may move to add defendant's insurance policy provider to the law suit. That will involving filing a motion

for Joinder

To ask for a copy of all e-mails that relate to the lawsuit, a party can file a discovery request

for the production of documents

After a bar fight, Helen's father has to spend several weeks recovering; he is not able to work. If Helen sues her father's attackers, she'd have a claim for:

loss of consortium

A court might find a seller liable for a failure to warn purchasers of the dangers associated with a particular product. Not only could the seller be sued under a theory of strict liability, but could be used for an action

in Negligence

A defendant can raise an affirmative defense only

in the answer to the complaint

An international fast food chain sells food to eat there or to take out. On its coffee cups, it has printed the following: "Warning, coffee is hot." To save money, the restaurant always serves its coffee at the temperature that water boils. A customer, walking to a car with a cup of coffee, trips and gets soaked in coffee. That part of the coffee that touches naked flesh products second and third-degree burns. For an action in negligence, the customer will claim that the restaurant breached

its duty to offer a sufficient warning

The easiest way to establish the gross negligence of a defendant is for plaintiff to

prove that defendant engaged in willful, wanton and reckless conduct

When a defendant admits to committing a tort but says that a reason exists to excuse liability, that defendant is

raising an affirmative defense

A trio of defendants is found liable in negligence for causing injury to plaintiff. One of the defendants pays the entire award in damages, then

seeks contribution from the other defendants

By meeting the burden of proof, the plaintiff has

shifted to defendant the burden to rebut the plaintiff's case

To establish defendant's liability, the plaintiff has to

show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant breached a duty of care

That theory of comparative negligence which would allow plaintiff to recover if 8% liable for the injury but not for 35% liable for the injury is known as

slight-gross theory of comparative negligence

A court might not allow for a plaintiff to file a claim for an ancient grievance because this could cause more disputes than it resolves. For that reason, a court will follow the common law and recognize the defense of

statute of limitations

A customer purchases canned food which, contrary to the expiration date stamped on it, has gone bad and is no longer fit to eat. The retailer had bought the food from a wholesaler, who had bought it from the manufacturer. If the customer does not realize that the food is tainted and gets so sick as to be hospitalized, the customer could most effectively sue the retailer under a theory of

strict liability

During surgery, a sponge is accidentally left inside the plaintiff. Only through a second surgery to remove the sponge does the pain and suffering that the plaintiff experiences end. Yet during the trial, not one of the six people in the original surgical team admitted to leaving the sponge. For that reason, the defendant, a hospital that employed the surgical team, requests for a judgment in its favor because the plaintiff could not establish who among the surgical team actually left the sponge inside of the plaintiff. Plaintiff will most likely succeed by asking the court not to grant that request because of

the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur

The theory of vicarious liability depends upon

the existence of a relationship

Because of high demand for a particular toy, a manufacturer quickly rushes to market a similar looking toy. To make the most of the opportunity to ride on the coattails of the sale of the toy in great demand, the manufacturer's similar looking toy has a tendency to fall apart after only several uses, so that small children could get hurt. An action in strict liability would focus on

the flaw in the product

To determine whether vicarious liability exists, a court typically will consider

the grant of authority

The issue of frolic and deter looks to

the principal's grant of authority to the agent

When it comes to a claim in strict liability because an item that was purchaser turned out to be dangerous, and when used properly, caused injury, the purchaser will need to allege that

the product was defective

The reason why a plaintiff might be able to recover under a claim of strict liability is

the product was unreasonably dangerous

Trespass is to physically interfering with a plaintiff's exclusive possession of property as nuisance is to interfering with a plaintiff's _______

use and enjoyment of the property

An airplane crashes into a barn, killing the livestock inside. The farmer sues the pilot and the owner of the plane to replace the livestock but the pilot is in a coma and cannot testify. To win, farmer most likely will

use the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur

When evaluating whether a principal has created an agency, courts will look at

who had the control in the agency