TX Bar Torts and Personal Injury 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Under res ipsa loquitur in Texas, a plaintiff uses the doctrine to:
- Prove the defendant's specific negligent act beyond reasonable doubt
- Create an inference of negligence when the injury type wouldn't normally occur without it and the instrumentality was under the defendant's control (Correct answer)
- Establish strict liability without any proof of fault
- Shift the burden of proving damages entirely to the defendant
Correct answer: Create an inference of negligence when the injury type wouldn't normally occur without it and the instrumentality was under the defendant's control
Res ipsa loquitur allows negligence to be inferred when the accident type doesn't normally occur without negligence and the defendant controlled the instrumentality causing harm.
Question 2: Texas follows the '51% bar' rule for modified comparative negligence. Under this rule, a plaintiff found to be 51% at fault:
- Recovers 49% of their damages from the defendant
- Recovers nothing but may seek contribution from other defendants
- Is completely barred from any recovery (Correct answer)
- May still recover if the defendant acted with gross negligence
Correct answer: Is completely barred from any recovery
Under Texas's modified comparative fault system, a plaintiff found 51% or more at fault for their own injuries is completely barred from all recovery.
Question 3: When a defendant's violation of a safety statute constitutes negligence per se, which elements of a negligence case does it establish?
- Only the damages element
- Only actual and proximate causation
- The duty and breach elements (Correct answer)
- All four elements — duty, breach, causation, and damages
Correct answer: The duty and breach elements
Negligence per se establishes duty and breach by proving the statutory violation, but the plaintiff must still independently prove causation and damages.
Question 4: A social host throws a party, knowingly allows a visibly intoxicated adult guest to drive away, and the guest causes a crash. Under Texas law, the social host is:
- Strictly liable under the Texas Dram Shop Act for serving alcohol
- Subject to very limited liability because Texas social host law does not impose broad duties for serving alcohol to adults (Correct answer)
- Automatically liable for all injuries caused by the intoxicated guest
- Liable only if the host also provided the vehicle to the guest
Correct answer: Subject to very limited liability because Texas social host law does not impose broad duties for serving alcohol to adults
Texas's Dram Shop Act primarily targets commercial providers; social hosts serving alcohol to non-minor adults face very limited tort liability.
Question 5: Which scenario best illustrates the 'but-for' test for actual causation in a negligence claim?
- The plaintiff would have been injured regardless of the defendant's conduct
- The defendant's negligence was one of many contributing factors to the injury
- The plaintiff's injury would not have occurred but for the defendant's negligent act (Correct answer)
- The defendant's conduct was a foreseeable cause of the plaintiff's type of injury
Correct answer: The plaintiff's injury would not have occurred but for the defendant's negligent act
The but-for test asks whether the plaintiff's harm would have occurred if the defendant had not been negligent — if the answer is 'no,' causation is established.
Question 6: A negligent fire at a hair salon spreads to a neighboring pharmacy, whose stock of flammable chemicals explodes and injures a pedestrian two blocks away. The proximate cause analysis focuses on:
- Whether the salon is strictly liable because it started the chain of events
- Whether fire ever creates foreseeable risks to neighboring properties
- Whether intervening causes always eliminate the original tortfeasor's liability
- Whether the pedestrian's injury was a reasonably foreseeable result of negligently starting the fire (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Whether the pedestrian's injury was a reasonably foreseeable result of negligently starting the fire
Proximate cause analysis asks whether the type of harm that occurred was a reasonably foreseeable result of the defendant's negligence, not merely whether the defendant set events in motion.
Question 7: Which type of intervening cause most likely constitutes a superseding cause that relieves the original tortfeasor of liability?
- An emergency responder's foreseeable negligent response to the original hazard
- A third party's negligent act that was a predictable response to the original danger
- An unforeseeable criminal act by a third party triggered by the original defendant's negligence (Correct answer)
- A treating physician's medical error occurring during treatment of the original injury
Correct answer: An unforeseeable criminal act by a third party triggered by the original defendant's negligence
A superseding cause is an unforeseeable independent intervening cause that breaks the causal chain; a foreseeable intervening cause — even a criminal one — does not relieve the original tortfeasor.
TX Bar Torts and Personal Injury 2
Under res ipsa loquitur in Texas, a plaintiff uses the doctrine to: