Negligent Tort

|

Negligent Tort |

Week 5 Assignment |

BUS670 Legal EnvironmentLawrence Arillo |

William Archer |

4/23/2012 |

|

A tort is defined as “a civil wrong that is not a breach of a contract” (Mallor, 2010, 170). Tort Law originated in the Industrial Revolution with the increase in technology which caused an increase in injuries to both persons and properties. There are currently four different types of torts and they are intent, recklessness, negligence, and strict liability (Mallor, 2010, 170). This paper will take a thorough look into negligent torts.

Negligence is defined as “a failure to use reasonable care, with harm to another party occurring as a result” (Mallor, 2010, 170). Since the 19th century many of the tort claims have been won in favor of the company, but here recently the plaintiff has been favored in the trial. There are three elements of a negligent claim and they are “the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff, the defendant committed a breach of this duty, and the breach was the actual and proximate cause of injury experienced by the plaintiff” (Mallor, 2010, 206).

The first two elements of a negligent claim involve the duty and breach of duty. The first element involved in this type of case is the duty of reasonable care. Negligence law “rests on the ideal that the members in society should normally behave in such a way in order to avoid the creation of unreasonable risks” (Mallor, 2010, 206). In order to prove negligence the “reasonable person” test must be used in order to assess whether or not the person acted under ordinary prudence when the tort occurred. The next element has to prove that the breach of duty occurred because the defendant failed to act as a reasonable person. Unfortunately negligence law’s definition of reasonableness of behavior is very broad when it comes to applications in everyday life (Mallor, 2010, 207).

The final element of a negligent claim is that the breach was the actual...