Bus-115 (Business Law): Chapter 6 Guide
Tort law and the essential elements of contracts
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, students should be able to accomplish the following objectives:
- Differentiate between the objectives of tort law and those of criminal law.
- Outline the nature of respondeat superior.
- Describe the element of duty.
- Identify the principal intentional torts and outline the elements of each.
- Explain the four elements of negligence.
- Contrast contributory negligence, comparative negligence, & assumption of the risk.
- Judge when the doctrine of strict liability applies.
- Discuss the emerging trends in cybertort law.
- Outline the various remedies available in tort law.
- Point out some developments in tort reform.
Major Concepts
6-1 Tort Law Defined
A tort is a private wrong that injures another person’s physical well-being, emotional health, property, or reputation. A person who commits a tort is called a tortfeasor. The other party is alternatively referred to as the injured party, the innocent party, or the victim.
The primary purpose of tort law is to compensate the innocent party by making up for any loss suffered by that victim. The doctrine of respondeat superior may impose legal liability on employers and make them pay for the torts committed by their employees within the scope of the employer’s business.
6-2 Intentional Torts
The principal intentional torts include assault, battery, false imprisonment, defamation, disparagement, food disparagement, fraudulent misrepresentation, civil theft, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and malicious prosecution.
6-3 Negligence
Negligence is the failure to exercise the degree of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in the same circumstances. Negligence includes four elements: duty of care, breach of duty through a failure to exercise the appropriate standard of care, proximate cause, and actual harm. Three defenses to negligence are contributory negligence, comparative negligence, and assumption of risk.
6-4 Strict Liability
Under the doctrine of strict liability, when people engage in ultrahazardous activities, they will be liable for any harm that occurs because of that activity, regardless of intent and regardless of care.
6-5 Cybertorts
Cybertorts involve computer data that has been invaded, distorted, falsified, misused, destroyed, or exploited financially by an electronic device. Therefore, cybertorts rarely involve any harm to a party’s physical well-being. Instead, the victim’s reputation has been hurt because a false statement has been placed on the Internet, the victim’s emotional state has been disturbed, because his or her privacy has been invaded by a posting on Facebook, or the victim has suffered monetary harm because of identity theft.
6-6 Remedies for Torts
Tort remedies include monetary damages and injunctions.
6-7 Developments in Tort Law
Survival statutes allow a lawsuit to be brought even if both the plaintiff and the defendant are deceased. Wrongful death statutes preserve the rights of third parties affected by the death of the deceased to bring a lawsuit. Statutes of repose establish a limit in years beyond which an injured party could not bring a lawsuit for an injury caused by a product or by medical malpractice. Another reform that has been suggested in some states is the application of comparative negligence as an affirmative defense in some product liability cases.
