LAW 122 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Contributory Negligence, Arsenic Poisoning, Reasonable Person
16 Oct 2015
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Negligence: the careless causing of harm, law of accidents, the tort of negligence balances the interest of plaintiffs and defendant. It tries to compensate plaintiff for having caused by actions conducted carelessly; while allowing the defendants to take some risks. Duty of care: analyzes the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant to determine if the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff (or someone like the plaintiff) to avoid causing harm. If there and no precedents, the court will apply a 3-part test: 2: was the harm to the plaintiff reasonable by the defendant? b) Objective test: would a reasonable person have anticipated that the plaintiff would be harmed by the defendant"s carelessness, ex: slip and fall on an icy sidewalk in front of the store. Not subjective: the opinion of either plaintiff or defendant does not matter: allows for assessment of risk and insurance coverage.
