Torts: Negligence and Causation Flashcards

A driver runs a red light and strikes a pedestrian who had jaywalked into the intersection. The jurisdiction applies pure comparative fault. The pedestrian is found 40% at fault. How is damages recovery affected?

Answer: Pedestrian recovers 60% of total damages

Under pure comparative fault, a plaintiff recovers damages reduced by their own percentage of fault, so 40% fault = 60% recovery.

A landowner's tree has a large dead branch visibly overhanging the public sidewalk. After a storm, the branch falls and injures a passerby. Which element of negligence is most directly established by the visible dead branch?

Answer: Breach of duty

The visible dead branch shows the landowner knew or should have known of the risk and failed to act, establishing breach of the duty of reasonable care.

A pharmacist fills a prescription with double the ordered dosage. The patient suffers harm. The prescribing doctor had written the correct dosage. Who is liable?

Answer: The pharmacist, for negligently dispensing the wrong dosage

A pharmacist owes a duty of care to accurately fill prescriptions, and dispensing the wrong dosage breaches that duty, making the pharmacist liable.

Two hunters simultaneously and negligently fire shots, one of which blinds the plaintiff. It is impossible to determine whose bullet caused the injury. Under the alternative liability doctrine, what result?

Answer: Both hunters are jointly and severally liable, and the burden shifts to each to exculpate themselves

Under Summers v. Tice alternative liability, when both defendants acted negligently and one caused harm, the burden shifts to defendants to prove they were not the cause.

A grocery store employee mops a floor but fails to put up a wet floor sign. A customer slips and falls 45 minutes later. What doctrine most efficiently establishes the store's negligence?

Answer: General duty of care with actual or constructive notice

A store has a duty to maintain safe premises and is liable when it has actual or constructive notice of a hazard, such as a wet floor the employee created.

A defendant's negligence causes a minor car accident, but the plaintiff had an undetected aneurysm that ruptures from the slight impact and causes death. Which rule governs?

Answer: The 'eggshell skull' rule makes defendant liable for full extent of harm

The eggshell skull (thin skull) rule holds defendants liable for all damages caused by their negligence, even if the plaintiff was unusually susceptible.

A city fails to repair a pothole it knew about for months. A driver swerves to avoid the pothole, strikes a cyclist, and injures her. Is the city's negligence a proximate cause of the cyclist's injury?

Answer: Yes, because hitting a cyclist while avoiding a road hazard is a foreseeable consequence of an unrepaired pothole

Proximate cause exists when the harm that occurred is a foreseeable consequence of the negligent act, and a traffic accident caused by an unrepaired pothole is foreseeable.