RESPONDEAT SUPERIOR

respondeat superior [Law Latin “let the superior make answer”] (17c) Torts. The doctrine holding an employer or principal liable for the employee's or agent's wrongful acts committed within the scope of the employment or agency. — Also termed master–servant rule. See scope of employment. 

“Most courts have made little or no effort to explain the result, and have taken refuge in rather empty phrases, such as ‘he who does a thing through another does it himself,’ or the endlessly repeated formula of ‘respondeat superior,’ which in itself means nothing more than ‘look to the man higher up.’ ” W. Page Keeton et al., The Law of Torts § 69, at 500 (5th ed. 1984).

RESPONDEAT SUPERIOR, Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

NEGLIGENCE PER SE

negligence per se. (1841) Negligence established as a matter of law, so that breach of the duty is not a jury question. • Negligence per se usu. arises from a statutory violation. — Also termed legal negligence.

NEGLIGENCE, Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

NEGLIGENT INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS

The tort of causing another severe emotional distress through one's negligent conduct. • Most courts will allow a plaintiff to recover damages for emotional distress if the defendant's conduct results in physical contact with the plaintiff or, when no contact occurs, if the plaintiff is in the zone of danger. See emotional distress; zone-of-danger rule. — Abbr. NIED. Cf. intentional infliction of emotional distress.

zone-of-danger rule. The doctrine allowing the recovery of damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress if the plaintiff was both located in the dangerous area created by the defendant's negligence and frightened by the risk of harm.

impact rule. Torts. The common-law requirement that physical contact must have occurred to allow damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress. • This rule has been abandoned in most jurisdictions. — Also termed physical-impact rule.

Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

Dillon v. Legg: Witnessing the Harm
Three factors to consider in determining whether to establish a duty to the plaintiff:
1) Whether plaintiff was located near the scene of the accident;
2) Whether the shock resulted from a direct emotional impact upon plaintiff from the sesory and contemporaneous observance of the accident; and
3) Whether plaintiff and the victim were closely related.

Understanding Tort's Fifth Edition

EGGSHELL-SKULL RULE

Torts. The principle that a defendant is liable for a plaintiff's unforeseeable and uncommon reactions to the defendant's negligent or intentional act. • Under this rule, for example, if one person negligently scrapes another who turns out to be a hemophiliac, the negligent defendant is liable for the full extent of the plaintiff's injuries even though the harm to another plaintiff would have been minor. — Also termed eggshell-plaintiff rule; thin-skull rule; special-sensitivity rule; old-soldier's rule. 

EGGSHELL-SKULL RULE, Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

HAND FORMULA

Hand formula. A balancing test for determining whether conduct has created an unreasonable risk of harm, first formulated by Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Carroll Towing Co., 159 F.2d 169 (2d Cir. 1947). • Under this test, an actor is negligent if the burden of taking adequate precautions against the harm is outweighed by the probable gravity of the harm multiplied by the probability that the harm will occur. 

“The legal standard applicable to most unintentional tort cases is that of negligence, defined by Judge Learned Hand as follows: the defendant is guilty of negligence if the loss caused by the accident, multiplied by the probability of the accident's occurring, exceeds the burden of the precautions that the defendant might have taken to avert it. This is an economic test.... Although the Hand formula is of relatively recent origin, the method that it capsulizes has been the basic one used to determine negligence ever since negligence was first adopted as the standard to govern accident cases.” Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law § 6.2, at 122–23 (2d ed. 1977).

HAND FORMULA, Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

Trespass: Prima Facie Case

1) Actor set out to make contact
2) Did in fact make contact

Products Liability

1. A manufacturer's or seller's tort liability for any damages or injuries suffered by a buyer, user, or bystander as a result of a defective product. • Products liability can be based on a theory of negligence, strict liability, or breach of warranty. 2. The legal theory by which liability is imposed on the manufacturer or seller of a defective product. 3. The field of law dealing with this theory. — Also termed product liability; (specif.) manufacturer's liability. See liability. — products-liability, adj.

“The law of products liability is that body of common and statutory law permitting money reparation for substandard conduct of others resulting in product-related injury to the injured party's person or property. Resistance to the description of products liability as a doctrine having receded, there is today a guiding tenet in the law of product-related injury that is the distillate of seventy years of decisional law. The birth of the doctrine can be dated at 1916, the publication of the immensely influential decision in MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., [217 N.Y. 382, 111 N.E. 1050 (1916)], in which the New York Court of Appeals held that the manufacturer of any product capable of serious harm if incautiously made owed a duty of care in the design, inspection, and fabrication of the product, a duty owed not only to the immediate purchaser but to all persons who might foreseeably come into contact with the product. Following MacPherson, the doctrine as formed by decisions of the ensuing decades is that a buyer, user, consumer or bystander in proximity to an unreasonably dangerous product, and who is injured in person or in property by its dangerous propensities, may recover in damages from the manufacturer or intermediate seller.” 1 M. Stuart Madden, Products Liability § 1.1, at 1–2 (2d ed. 1988).

strict products liability. (1964) Products liability arising when the buyer proves that the goods were unreasonably dangerous and that (1) the seller was in the business of selling goods, (2) the goods were defective when they were in the seller's hands, (3) the defect caused the plaintiff's injury, and (4) the product was expected to and did reach the consumer without substantial change in condition. 

PRODUCTS LIABILITY, Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

The Risk/Utility Test: Wade Factors

1) the utility of the product to the public as a whole and to the individual user
2) the likelihood that it will cause injury
3) the availability of a safer design
4) the potential for designing and manufacturing the product so that it is safer but remains functional and reasonably priced
5) the ability of the plaintiff to have avoided injury by careful use of the product
6) the degree of awareness of the potential danger of the product which reasonably can be attributed to the plaintiff
7) the manufacturer's ability to spread any cost related to improving the safety of the design

Denny v. Ford

Strict Liability - Abnormally Dangerous Activity

1) the degree of risk of harm to persons or property
2) the magnitude of that harm
3) the inevitability of some risk irrespective of precautionary measures that might be taken
4) the ordinary (or unusual) nature of the activity in the community in which it is found
5) how suited the activity is to the place where the defendant engaged in it
6) the activity's value to the community in comparison to the risk of harm created by its presence

Restatement (Second) of Tort

Assumption of Risk

1) know a particular risk
2) voluntarily
3) assume it.

Constitutionality of Punitive Damage Award

1) the degree of reprehensibility of the non-disclosure
2) the very high ratio between the punitive damage award and the actual damage
3) the much lower civil penalties generally authorized for such misconduct

Strict Liability

Liability that does not depend on actual negligence or intent to harm, but that is based on the breach of an absolute duty to make something safe. • Strict liability most often applies either to ultrahazardous activities or in products-liability cases. — Also termed absolute liability; liability without fault. Cf. fault liability; outcome responsibility.

LIABILITY, Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress: Prima Facie Case

A. Outrageous or extreme conduct
B. For purpose of causing distress
C. That does cause distress

Proximate Cause

1. A cause that is legally sufficient to result in liability; an act or omission that is considered in law to result in a consequence, so that liability can be imposed on the actor.  2. A cause that directly produces an event and without which the event would not have occurred.  — Also termed (in both senses) direct cause; direct and proximate cause; efficient proximate cause; efficient cause; efficient adequate cause; initial cause; first cause; legal cause; procuring cause; producing cause; primary cause; jural cause. Cf. (in sense 2) remote cause.
“The four ‘tests' or ‘clues' of proximate cause in a criminal case are (1) expediency, (2) isolation, (3) foreseeability and (4) intention.” Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 823 (3d ed. 1982).
“ ‘Proximate cause’ — in itself an unfortunate term — is merely the limitation which the courts have placed upon the actor's responsibility for the consequences of the actor's conduct. In a philosophical sense, the consequences of an act go forward to eternity, and the causes of an event go back to the dawn of human events, and beyond. But any attempt to impose responsibility upon such a basis would result in infinite liability for all wrongful acts, and would ‘set society on edge and fill the courts with endless litigation.’ [North v. Johnson, 58 Minn. 242, 59 N.W. 1012 (1894).] As a practical matter, legal responsibility must be limited to those causes which are so closely connected with the result and of such significance that the law is justified in imposing liability. Some boundary must be set to liability for the consequences of any act, upon the basis of some social idea of justice or policy.” W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on Torts § 41, at 264 (5th ed. 1984).

Black's Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009)

False Imprisonment: Prima Facie Case

Actor A is subject to liability to other person P for false imprisonment if:
1. A acts,
2. intending to confine P;
3. A's act causes P to be confined; and
4. P is aware of her confinement.

Assault: Prima Facie Case

Actor A is subject to liability to other person P for assault if:
1. A acts,
2. intending to cause in P the apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact with P; and
3. A's act causes P reasonably to apprehend such a contact.

Battery: Prima Facie Case

Actor A is subject to liability to other person P for battery if:
1. A acts,
2. intending to cause a contact with P;
3. the contact with P that A intends is of a harmful or offensive type; and
4. A's act causes P to suffer a contact that is harmful or offensive