Negligence is a term of art, but has different meanings in different jurisdictions. In ‘Tort’, damage is an essential ingredient but that element is not necessary in master servant relationship. In criminal law, there are channels of offences based on negligence in which loss or injury is immaterial; it is enough if the act is likely to cause injury or endanger life. Operating a patient without consent is an example of negligence even without actual damage. Dictionary meaning of term ‘Negligence’ is ‘Lack of Proper Care’.
The duty of care imposed by law is measured by the degree of carefulness that a reasonable person would exercise in a given situation. Duty to act is a person is under a duty to everyone at all times to exercise reasonable care for the safety and protection of the people and their property. However, in certain special cases, no one is required to aid another in risk. Factual cause is when the defendant’s actions are factual causes of the harm when the harm would not have occurred without such conducts, while scope of liability is a limited liability to those harms that result from risks that made the defendant’s actions tortious. Scope of liability is divided into two parts; foreseeability, which excludes liability for harms that were sufficiently unforeseeable at the time of the tortious act that were not among the risks that made the defendant negligent; and superseding cause, which is an intervening act that relieves the defendant of liability.
Before moving further, it is important to understand the term ‘negligence’ with reference to tortious liability. “Negligence is the breach of a duty caused by the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided by those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs would do, or doing something which a prudent and reasonable man would not do. Actionable negligence consists in the neglect of the use of ordinary care or skill towards a person to whom the defendant owes the duty of observing ordinary care and skill, by which neglect the plaintiff has suffered injury
CHAPTER-2: ELEMENTS OF NEGLIGENCE. It is necessary to have a conceptual framework which helps lawyers to decide whether there is the basis of a claim or possibility of a good defence. Negligence suits have historically been analyzed in stages, called elements. In order to establish in an action of negligence, the claimant must prove each of the following elements: (i) Duty of care. (ii) Breach of duty.
58.According to Art. 74 CISG, only when the loss was foreseeable by the other party can the injured party be entitled to demand compensation of profit lost as a consequence of the breach of contract by the other party. [UNCITRAL CISG DIGEST, p. 347]. In this case, however, CLAIMANT’s loss was unforeseeable for RESPONDENT. 1.
The conceptual paper: A Study of Vicarious Liability for Employer: Conflict Interest Noor Ramizah binti Abdul Talib (035809) University Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, Terengganu, Malaysia. E-mail: Arnafiza02@gmail.com Abstract . This means that where a worker injures a fellow employee in the course of their job, or injures somebody who is not a fellow employee (such as a visitor to the premises), the victim can claim compensation from the employer, who is vicariously liable. One reason for imposing liability on the employer is readily apparent. The employer (a firm or corporation in most cases) is much more likely to have the financial means to pay the claim than the individual employee.
VICARIOUS LIABILITY The tort doctrine that imposes responsibility upon one person for the failure of another, with whom the person has a special relationship (such as Parent and Child, Employer and Employee. Or Owner of vehicle and Driver), to exercise such care as a reasonably prudent person would use under similar circumstances. Vicarious Liability is a legal doctrine that assigns liability for an injury to a person who did not cause the injury but who has a particular legal relationship to the person who did act negligently. It is also referred to as imputed Negligence. Legal relationships that can lead to imputed negligence include the relationship between Parent and Child, Husband and Wife, Owner of a vehicle and Driver, and Employer and Employee.
We know now that this liability gained its basis from the case of Rylands v. Fletcher (1868) . It is a liability for which defendant is held liable even if he was not negligent, had no intention of causing that harm or even made positive efforts to avert the same. Because of this nature of it , it is also referred as “no fault” liability. According to this rule if a person brings any dangerous thing on his land and keeps it and that thing escapes and does the very probable mischief , the person brought it there or who is the owner of this thing will be liable even if he has not been negligent . The liability here arises not because of any fault of defendant but because of the dangerous nature of the thing brought to the land and escape of such thing.
The law of tort applies duties of the civil law in respect to a wide range of behavior which are relevant to a business activity, this area of law serves a very important role for consumers and those are doing business with them. As stated above in order to have a sure fire claim when claiming under the tort of negligence it is compulsory to fulfill the three requirement, the first requirement is the " duty of care " it is stated that whether the defendant owes the plaintiff a duty of care, is definitely a question of the law. it is always onus that the plaintiff establish the existence of a duty of care, but usually in most cases it is very straightforward to establish a duty of care, as long as it is provided that the relationship between parties falls within the duty of care for example a doctors owes a duty of care to his/her patients, or motorist owe a duty of care to the other road users, even architects owe a duty of care to the people who are occupying the specific building, these are just few examples of owing a duty of care. if the relationship between the parties does not fall within the established duties of care, than the plaintiff needs to be able to show the 2 things which are (1) '' it was reasonably foreseeable that the defendant act or omission could cause harm to someone in the plaintiff's position ", which means that it the plaintiff must be able to show that during the time of the incident it was reasonably foreseeable that the defendant's code of conduct could cause harm to someone in the plaintiff's position. (2) ''the salient features of the case are consistent with the existence of a duty of care'', which also means that it must be reasonably that the defendant's code of conduct was most likely to cause harm to the plaintiff, the plaintiff must also be able to prove that the salient features of the case is consistent with the existence of the duty of care.
Tort of negligence is the failure to act as a reasonable person to exercise the standard of care required by the law and resulting in damage to the party to whom the duty was owed. To prove negligence, the claimant must show that the defendant causing the damage was not only the actual cause of damage. He also show that the proximate cause of the damage. Proximity is the legal relationship between the parties from which the law will attribute a duty of care. And to prove negligence the type of the damage that occurred must have been foreseeable.