Torts & Personal Injury Flashcards

A statute requires railings on apartment balconies to keep occupants from falling. A burglar climbing up the outside of the building grabs a non-compliant railing and is hurt. Can he use negligence per se?

Answer: No, because he is not within the class of persons the statute protects

Negligence per se applies only when the plaintiff is in the protected class and the harm is the type the statute was meant to prevent.

A barrel falls from the second-floor window of a warehouse and hits a pedestrian. The pedestrian cannot explain how it fell. Which doctrine best helps the pedestrian get to the jury?

Answer: Res ipsa loquitur

Res ipsa loquitur lets the jury infer negligence when an accident ordinarily does not happen without negligence and the instrumentality was likely under the defendant's control.

Under Justice Cardozo's majority opinion in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, a defendant owes a duty of care to:

Answer: Only plaintiffs within the foreseeable zone of danger

Cardozo held that duty runs only to foreseeable plaintiffs within the zone of danger, while Andrews' dissent favored a duty to everyone.

Through slight negligence, Jake causes a minor collision. Because of a rare bone condition, the other driver suffers severe fractures that a typical person would not have suffered. Jake is liable for:

Answer: All of the injuries, because the defendant takes the plaintiff as he finds him

Under the eggshell-plaintiff rule, a defendant is liable for the full extent of the injury even if a pre-existing condition made it worse than expected.

A negligent driver injures a pedestrian, and an emergency-room doctor then negligently treats the pedestrian, making the injury worse. Is the driver liable for the added harm?

Answer: Yes, because negligent medical care is a foreseeable intervening cause

Subsequent medical malpractice is treated as foreseeable, so it does not break the chain of proximate cause from the original tortfeasor.

Kim sees a stranger drowning in a lake and could easily throw him a life ring but does nothing. Kim had no role in the stranger's peril. Under the traditional common-law rule, Kim is:

Answer: Not liable, because there is generally no affirmative duty to rescue a stranger

The common law imposes no general duty to rescue absent a special relationship, the defendant's creation of the peril, or a voluntary undertaking.

Under the Learned Hand formula from United States v. Carroll Towing, a defendant is negligent if:

Answer: The burden of precautions is less than the probability of harm multiplied by the gravity of the loss

Hand's formula finds breach when B < P × L, meaning precautions cost less than the expected harm they would prevent.