When Is an Action Negligent?

To recognize a tort, a potential plaintiff needs to find several elements in order to identify if he or she has a case. First, one needs to prove that the defendant neglected a law/duty. One finds this law in rules and general standards because they are obligations that everyone is forced to observe. Second, it must be proved that the actor breached said duty, or in other words, did not obey the rule. Third, one must show that the breach of the duty was the proximate cause of the tort, meaning that the legal breach was the primary reason why the wrong occurred. And finally, there must be damage, which can be represented by the losses of the victim.

In order to understand products liability, we need to first understand two basic concepts of tort law that reveal some instances where public policy decides to allocate the loss expenses in any tort law case.

The first is negligence, which makes the actor liable only if one was not using proper care when performing the activity that caused the damage. And second, strict liability, which establishes that the amount of care an actor used when one’s action generated the damage does not matter. This is applicable if one’s actions when the damage was incurred are considered by the law as risky.

To understand negligence liability, consider your car. Anyone that has being involved in a car accident that was not one’s fault, yet still was liable for the car´s repair expenses, will understand the concept. It is only fair that if a person acts negligently, generating damages to a third party, one is held liable for that action, and, as a result of these actions, must pay for damages.

Every time that we face a negligent action, the basic issue that we need to understand is that the actor did not intend for the action to consequently harm anyone. If this was not the case, one would enter other field of tort law, governed by intentional torts. This blog will not discuss intentional torts because no manufacturer intentionally tries to cause damage to his consumers.

But how can we tell that we are facing a negligent act? There are several principles that help one establish liability in such cases. The most important law used by US courts is the reasonable person standard. This principle means that one will only be held liable if a reasonable person would have used a higher level of care.

When is an actor supposed to exercise any level of care? One has a duty to exercise reasonable care every time that one’s conduct might potentially cause physical harm to others. This means that any activity that involves any risk to a third party could potentially generate negligence liability under such rules.

In conclusion, for any tort claim, the question of whether the care exercised by the defendant meets reasonable person standards will always be determined by a jury. A jury’s members will be able to appropriately determine if a common person, under the same circumstances, would have acted as the defendant did.

Reference: Legal > Consumer’s Negligence and with Manufacturing Defects?

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