Tort Law: Part 5

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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

An Introduction to American Law

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University of Pennsylvania

An Introduction to American Law

оценки

This course will give you a glimpse into six different areas of American law: Tort Law, Contract Law, Property, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, and Civil Procedure. You will gain insight into the complexities and dilemmas that arise from the application of law in different settings, and what is distinctive about American approaches.

From the lesson

Tort Law

Tort law governs how people may sue each other civilly (as opposed to criminally) in order to receive compensation for harms or injuries other people caused them. In this module, Professor Allen will explore the goals of tort law through a historic case. She will address what makes tort law distinct and issues surrounding negligence and liability.

Tort Law: Part 4 4:00

Tort Law: Part 5 5:06

Tort Law: Part 6 8:02

Meet the Instructors

Anita Allen
Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy
Penn Law
Shyam Balganesh
Professor of Law
Penn Law
Stephen Morse
Ferdinand Wakeman Hubbell Professor of Law; Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry; Associate Director, Center for Neuroscience & Society
Penn Law
Theodore Ruger
Dean and Bernard G. Segal Professor of Law
Penn Law
Tess Wilkinson-Ryan
Assistant Professor of Law and Psychology
Penn Law
Tobias Barrington Wolff
Professor of Law
Penn Law

[MUSIC]

The fault system is not the whole story of American tort law by any means.

There are areas of tort law where a person can be held liable for an injury,

even though he or she has not been negligent or intended harm or offense.

Tort law includes doctrines of strict liability.

One might find this surprising in light of Brown versus Kendall.

If a fault-based system is so just and practical, how can doctrines of

strict liability, liability without fault, also be just and practical?

One way to understand the situation is this.

While generally speaking, American tort law holds people liable when they are at

fault, some activity is so dangerous the law holds those who engage in it

to a higher standard, a standard of liability without regard to fault.

The exception to the fault principle for

very hazardous activities may function to discourage it.

Hence, the doctrine of strict liability for injuries caused by the possession of

wild animals and for blasting operations as part of our law.

If a person keeps dangerous wild animals, say snakes, poisonous snakes,

or adult chimpanzees in their home, and the animal bites a guest,

the animal's keeper will be strictly liable to the injured person.

Or if a person is engaged in a business involving the use of blasting or

explosions he'll be strictly liable for resulting injuries there too.

American tort law also holds the manufacturers of

consumer products strictly liable for injuries caused by manufacturing defects.

The argument for departing from the fault principal here is different.

It's not so much that manufacturing consumer products like make-up, or

motorcycles, or medicines is itself dangerous.

It's that the public has expectations of safety and

cannot protect themselves from risk and dangers, of which they may not be aware.

Some courts recognize near strict liability for

unreasonably dangerous product designs and poor product labeling.

Courts and commentators sometimes stress that justice or good public policy of

asking those who profit from enterprises to internalize the true cost of

their businesses to assume the burden of redistributing injury cost through

their insurance pricing and to seek the optimal levels of investment in safety.

Even when liability is based on fault, American tort law eases the burden of

proving fault to make it easier for plaintiffs to recover.

Sometimes it's not practical to expect someone who's been injured to

prove exactly in what way they were injured through negligence, and

the injury itself strongly suggests negligence.

For example, if a barrel of flour falls out of a second story window and

hits a pedestrian on the head, doesn't that mean whomever was in control of

the barrel of flour had to have been negligent?

Res ipsa loquitur we say, the thing speaks for itself.

If a bottle of Coca-Cola explodes in the hands of a waitress can we

assume that that particular bottle was negligently manufactured?

If a patient wakes up from abdominal surgery and

his arm is paralyzed can't we assume that somebody in the operating room was

negligent even though the patient who was under anesthesia cannot prove it?

Doesn't the thing speak for itself?

Sometimes tort law makes one person responsible for the wrongdoing of another.

Employers, though faultless, are liable for

the negligence of workers that takes place in the scope of duty.

The pizza delivery guy employed by Joe's Pizza causes an accident while

recklessly speeding to make his next delivery.

Let's imagine.

Well, Joe's Pizza is vicariously liable, respondeat superior, we say, more Latin.

So, American tort law is a system of fault-based liability with several

important exceptions.

Tort law is not the only way in which America deals with problems of injury.

In most states, automobile drivers are required to have

no-fault insurance policies that pay for personal injuries without regard to fault.

Workers who get injured at work due to the routine negligence of

their employers are not permitted to sue those employers.

They must apply for compensation through an insurance program,

the worker's compensation insurance system.

Various victim injury funds, some ad hoc, some standing,

compensate people injured by vaccines, hurricanes, oil spills, and terrorism.

Such funds heal nationally felt wounds and

free the courts from a large number of related but factually complex cases.

In the case of vaccine compensation, the tort alternative means that drug

companies that make vaccine need not fear liability for

providing tools essential to our public's health.

[MUSIC]

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