Negligence

Front 1

The Four Parts of Negligence That Must be Met

Back 1

1) Duty
2) Breach
3) Causation
4) DamagesNegligence Rule

Front 2

Negligence Rule

Back 2

A plaintiff may recover damages if the defendant (1) owed the plaintiff a DUTY to act in a certain way, the defendant (2) BREACHed the duty to act to the standard required, and (3) CAUSED some (4) HARM to the plaintiff.

A reasonable prudent person's conduct is the standandard used in a negligence action. The reasonable person is a fictitious person whose conduct is never negligent but always reasonable and prudent. The reasonable persont test is an objective tst, of what a reasonably prudent person would have done under the circumstances.

The policy rational for the reasonable person standard is that we generally owe our fellow citizens a duty to exercise reassonable care in the conduct of our own affairs

Front 3

The Learned Hand Test (The financial way to determine a reasonable person)

Back 3

The learned hand formula is a financial way to determine whether an accident that occured constitues a negligent action. If the burden of precuation is less than the magnitude of the accident multiplied by the probability of occurrence. If the burden is less then you fell below the standard of what a reasonably prudent person would have done under the circmstance

Front 4

The Different Ranges of the Reasonable Person Standard

Back 4

1) Especially Dangerous Instruments
2) Emergencies
3) An Actor's Knowledge and Skill
4) Youth: Special Treatment for Miners
5) Physical and Mental Disabilities

Front 5

Reasonable Person Standard: Especially Dangerous Instruments

Back 5

The care required is always reasonable care, however, the care which is reasonable varies with degree of reasoanble care that must be exercised

Front 6

Reasonable Person: Emergenies

Back 6

The reasonable person standard applies. However, some jurisdictions allow a sudden emergeny doctrine:

Front 7

Reasonable Person: An Actor's Knoweledge and Skill

Back 7

If an actor's attributes such as attention, perception, intelligence, and judgment are superior to those of a typical individual , those traits must be considered in evaluating whether the actor's conduct has been reasonable.

Front 8

Reasonable Person: Youth

Back 8

In consindering the neglience of a child it is the duty of the child to exercise the same care that reasonably careful child of the same age, intelligence, maturity, traning, and experience would exercise under the same or similar circumstances. Except, where the activity the child engages in is an inherently dangerous, then the child should be held to an adult standard of care.

Front 9

Reasonable Person: Physical and Mental Disabilities

Back 9

For a physically disabled actor, the reasonable person test is applied with referece to the disability.

Front 10

Recklessness

Back 10

To be reckless, conduct must involve an unreasonable or intentional disregard of a risk that presents a high degree of probability that substnatial harm will result. The degree of risk that substantial harm will result must be known or reasonably apparent, and the harm must be a probable consequence of the defendant's election ro run that risk or of his failure to reasonably recognize it.

Front 11

Breach

Back 11

You have a breach when you fail to act as well as the duty (standard) required.

Front 12

Negligence per se

Back 12

Negligence per se is the unexcused violation of a statute (a breach of statutory duty is considered equal to (n)egligence. Negligence per se established the duty and breach in a cause of action in (N)egligence. For negligence per se to apply, the propoenent must show that he or she is a member of the class the statute was meant to avoid.

Front 13

Industry Custom

Back 13

Proof of complaince with the industry custom is reelvenat to the question of reasonable conduct but it is not controlling on that issue.

Front 14

res ipsa loquitur

Back 14

Res ipsa loquitur is latin for "the thing speaks for itself." Res ipsa applies when the plantiff cannot prove that the defendant is negligenct but circumstantial evidence suffices. In order to recover from res ipsa loquitur the planitiff must show that:

Front 15

Cause-in-Fact

Back 15

The plaintiff must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant's negligence was a cause-infact of the plaintiff's harm. Cause-in-fact is traditinoally established using a "but-for"test. That is "but-for" the defendant's negligence the harm would not have occurred.

Front 16

Multiple Sufficient Causes

(alternative to the "but-for" test)

Back 16

where the acts of two concurrent tortfeasors combine to produce a harm to another and either actu would have been sufficient to pruduce the harm, the burden is on each tortfeasor to show that its act wwas not a legal cause of the harm. A tortfeasor in such a circumstance may show that its act was not a legal cause by proving: that the other contributiong cause was not the result of a tortious act; or that the other's act created a force so much greater than the tortfeasors act that the tortfeasors act was not a cause of the harm.

Front 17

Concert of action

Back 17

Under the concerted action theory, an actor may be liable for the harm caused by another if he: (a) doesa tortious act in concert with the other or pursuant to a common design with him or (b) knows that the other's conduct constitutues a breach of duty and gives substantial assistance or encouragement to the other so to conduct himself or (c) gives substantial assistance to the other in accomplishing a tortious result and his own conduct, separately considered, constitutes a breach of duty to the third person.

Front 18

Alternative Liaibility

Back 18

Where only one of two (or more) independent, concurrent tortfeasors who breached a duty to the plaintiff injured the plaintiff, but the plaintiff through no fault of his or her own cannot determine which one cased the injury, the burden shifts to each defendant to prove it was not the cause.

Front 19

Factors of Alternative Liability

Back 19

(1) concurrent tortfeasors brech duties to the plaintiff, and (2) only one caued the harm and plaintiff cannot determine which one, and (3) each of the defendant's created a substantially similar risk of harm. Implicit in the third element is a requirement sometimes broken out as a forth element, and (4) all of the tortfeasors who might have cauesd the harm are being sued by the plaintiff.

Front 20

Modified Alternative Liability

Back 20

Modified alternative liability loosens the requirement that all wrongdoers must be before the court. States vary in how many must be present; some require a majority; some require a substnatial number. Modified alternative liability loosnes the requirement that all of the wrongdoers breached a duty to the plaintiff. Each defendant is severally liable only for its market share (or, for the portion of the total risk that it created) rather than being jointly and severally liable. States vary in how market share is determined; some refer to natinoal market share while other attempt to determine the share of the market that served the plaintiff's area (such as plaintiff's estate).

Front 21

Factors to consider in modified alternative liability

Back 21

(1) injury caused by fungible (similar in identity) product made by all defendants, (2) INjury due to unreasonably dangerous product design, (3) inability to identify specific manufacturer, (4) joining substantial proportion of relevant manufacturers. The fungible products requirement reflects the equitable basis of imposing liability based on market share when all manufacturers' products created the same risk.

Front 22

Factors of Proximate Cause

Back 22

(1) Was the act a "but-for" cause of the harm?
(2) Was there a natural and continuous between the cause and effect?
(3) Was the act a substantial factor in producing the harm?
(4) Was the harm a direct result of the act without too many intervening causes?
(5) Was the effect of cause on the result too attenuated?
(6) was the act likely too produce such a result?
(7) By the exercise of prudent foresight, could the result be foreseen?
(8) Was the result too remote from the harm in time so that intervening causes are more likely to have affected the result?

Front 23

Duty to protect others

Back 23

Generaly one has no duty to aid or protect another. One exception: a duty may arise if there is a special relationship between the parties based on one person entrusted himself to the control and protection of the other with a consequent loss of control to protect himself.

Front 24

Factors for Duty for Special Relationship

Back 24

(1) The severity of the risk
(2) The burden upon the defendant
(3) The likelihood of occurrence
(4) Relationship between the parties
(5) The foreseeability of the harm
(6) The defendants ability to comply with the proposed duty
(7) The victim's inability to protect himself from the harm
(8) The costs of providing protection
(9) Whether the plaintiff bestowed some economic benefit on the defendant

Front 25

Dram Shop Statutes

Back 25

Dram shop statutes impose a duty on commercial vendors of alcohol to third parties injured by intoxicated patrons, but states are split on whether such a duty should be imposed on social hosts.

Front 26

Factors of Duty

Back 26

(1) Foreseeability of harm,
(2) Degree of certainty that the victim suffered harm,
(3) Closeness of connection between defendants conduct and harm (proximate cause),
(4) Moral blame attached to defendant's conduct
(5) The policy of preventing future harm
(6) The extent of the burden to the defendant and the community of imposing a duty, and
(7) Availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance

Front 27

Proximate cause (all three rules)

Back 27

A proximate cause is one which in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause produces the injury and without which the result would not have occurred. There are three approaches to proximate cause: (1) the directness test treats a defendant's conduct that is a cause-in-fact of a plaintiff's harm as a proximate cause if there are no intervening forces between the defendant's act and the plaintiff's harm. (2) The foreseeability test treats a cause-in-fact as a proximate cause if the plainitiff's harm was reasonably foreseeable, (3) the substantial factor test treats a defendant's conduct as a prxomate cause of a plaintiff's harm if the conduct is important enough compared to other causes of the harm to justify liability

Front 28

Proximate Cause - Zone of Risk

Back 28

Duty is a question of law based on general consideration of whether the defendant's conduct creates a zone of risk to others. Proximate cause is a question of fact based on a specific question of whether the defendant's conduct created the foreseeable risk of the harm that occurred to the type of plaintiff that suffered. Foreseeablity is "genuine foreseeability" or reasonable foreseeablity, not a foreseeable but improbable or freakish event.

Front 29

"Then skull" or "eggshell plaintiff"

Back 29

The "thin skull" or "eggshell plaintiff" rule requires defendants to take their victim as they find them. Damages are not reduced by the fact that the plaintiff had a preexisting condition making her more susceptible to harm. Policy is you take the plaintiff as you find them.

Front 30

Factors to Consider for the Substantial Factor Test

Back 30

To consider whether an actor's conduct is a proximate cause of another's harm under the substantial factor test, consdier (1) the number of other factors that contributed in producing the harm and the extent of their effect. (2) Whether the actor's conduct has created a force or a series of forces that are in continuous and active operationg up to the time of the harm, or has created a situation harmless unless acted upon by other forces for which the actor is not responsible. (3) Lapse of time. Since there can be more than one substantial factor, the ultimate question is whether the actors conduct is substantial enough, relative to other causes, to justify the imposition of liability.

Front 31

Intervening/Superseding Act

Back 31

The intervening act of a third party, whether or not an intentional tort, does not prevent a defendant's conduct from being a legal cause of a plaintiff's harm if the intervening act was reasonably foreseeable. If the orginal act is a foreseeable consequence of the damages incurred than it is an interceding act whtere the person is liable. If the orginal negligent act is an unforeseeable cnosequence than a superseding act must have occurred.

Front 32

Intervening or Superseding for act for cars stolen with key's left in the ignition

Back 32

States differ on whether an automobiles owner whose vehicle is stolen b/c he or she left the keys in the vehicle will be liable for harms caused by the intervening of the theif. Some courts deny liability altogether while others, including this court, apply the superseding cause test to see whether the intervening theft prevents the owner from being liable. Liability will be imposed if the owners conduct was a substantial factor (proximate cause) and the intervening act was reasonably foreseeable (no superseding cause).

Front 33

Contributory Negligence

Back 33

Under the contributory negligence system, a plaintiff whose own negligence is a cause of his or her own injury is barred from recovery.

Front 34

Comparative fault

Back 34

Under comparative negligence a plainitff is not barred from recovery but is reduced according to the plaintiff's degree of fault.

Front 35

Pure Comparative Fault

Back 35

Pure comparative fault a plaintiff can sue and recover damages but the defendant fault whatever percentage will be reduced and the plaintiff will be able to recover whatever percentage of fault that was the defendant(s).

Front 36

Modified Comparative Negligence

Back 36

The modified comparative negligence rule allows a plaintiff to recover if the plaintiff's negligence isn't above a certain percentage. One popular appraoch is the 50% approach, the other is a 49%.

Front 37

Express assumption of risk (exculpatory agreement)

Back 37

Express assumption of the risk are those plaintiff's who expressly agree they will not hold the defendant liable for injury he/she suffers from a risk created by the defendant. However, this is usually limited to things that can be dangerous by their nature but if the defendant is negligence express assumption of the risk ususally does not apply.

Exculpatory agreements are sometimes valid contracts, but in certain situations courts will refuse to treat them as valid if they are against public policy.

Front 38

Implied assumption of the risk

Back 38

For implied assumption of the risk the four following elements must be met:
(1) The plaintiff must have knoweldge of the facts constituting a dangerous condition
(2) the plaintiff must know the condition is dangerous
(3) the plaintiff must appreciate the nature and extent of the danger
(4) plaintiff must voluntaryily expose him/herself the danger.

Front 39

Assumption of the risk vs. Contributory Negligence

Back 39

The difference between contributory negligence and assumption of the risk is that contributory negligence defeats recovery because it is a proximate mcaue of the accident, while assumption of the risk defeats recovery because it is a previous abandonment of the right to complain if an accident occured. Assumption of the risk is a subjective test and question of law, while contrubutory neglience is question of fact and an objective test.

Front 40

Mitigation of Damages

Back 40

Requires that the plaintiff to make reasonable efforts to alleviate the effects of the injury. Un reasonable failure to mitigate damages can prevent recovery for any damages that would have been prevented by mitigation.

Front 41

Immunities

Back 41

Sovereign immunity did not allow people to sue the government. The federal torts claims act allowed an exception to this rule under certain circumstances.

The Federal Tort Claims act dsirectrionary function exemption applies when the acts alleged to be negligent: (1) are not compelled by statute or regulation, and (2) involve an element of judgment or choicde that is grounded in consideration of public policy.

Front 42

Statute of Limitations

Back 42

a statute of limitations relates to the time a plaintiff should reasonably have known that he or she had a legal claim and bars a claim unless it is filed within a certain period after that time.

Front 43

When a Statue of Limitations Begins

Back 43

Statute of limitations run when the plaintiff reasonably has notice that someone may have caused injury to the plaintiff

Front 44

Statute of Repose

Back 44

relates to the time when a defendant committed the act or omission that is the basis for a plaintiff's claim and bars a claim unless it is filled within a certain period after that time, even if the statute of limitations does not bar the claim.

Front 45

When statute of repose begins to run

Back 45

Statute of repose begin to run from the time of the tortious conduct (i.e. the negligent design/ building). The limitation period of a statute of repose may expire prior to the time of injury occurs.

Front 46

Joint and Several Liability

Back 46

A plaintiff is entitled to collect whatever portion of the recoverable damages the plaintiff wishes from any of the a and severally laible defendants, regardless of their relative degree of fault

Front 47

Several Liability

Back 47

Each defendant in this case would only be liable for their share of the total responsibility

Front 48

Contribution

Back 48

When a plaintiff has collected more from a jointly and severally liable defendant than that defendant's share, that defendant may sue the other defendant(s) in a contribution action for the excess.

Front 49

Indivisible Harms

Back 49

Indivisible harms are those caused by the combined acts of multiple tortfeasros, wich cannot be attributed to a particular tortfeasor. When a plaintiff suffers indivisible harms, the plaintiff is unable to meet his or her burden of proving that a particular tortfeasor is a cause-in-fact of a particular harm. To escape liability for indivisible harm, each defendant bears the burden of showing that its act was not a cause-in-fact of the harm. Defendant's who failt to meet this burden are either jointly and severally liable for severally liable according to relative degrees of fault, depending on the jurisdictions approach.

Front 50

Professional Malpractice

Back 50

For professional malpractice, custom sets the standard. If expert testimoney can establish the customary or accepted practice standard in the profession, that standard fully describes the professional's obligatory level or care. Testimoney about what should have been done, if it advocates deviation from customary care, cannot overcome the controlling power of custom (and ought to be treated as not relevant)

Front 51

Professionals Duty

Back 51

Professionals have a duty to exercise reasonable care. Reasonable care is determined by comparing an actor's conduct with the conduct of others similarly situated with and with similar professional training. The court concludes that these propositions are different from saying that the profession sets its own standard, since a jury could find that a standard failed to recognize the state of medical science

Front 52

Determining when Professional Standard is Used

Back 52

The professional standard should be used where it will impose an even higher standard of care than that of the reasonable prudent person. The standard should be applied for actors whose callings have professional obligations, relationships with clients, and freedom from commercial pressures.

Front 53

Common Traits of Those Under a Professional Standard

Back 53

The work must be predominantly intellectual and non-routine involving the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment and must not be standardized in terms of time. The position also must require knowledge customarily acquired by specialized study in an institution of higher learning

Front 54

Types of Professional Standards

Back 54

The professional standards have been applied by three different rules: (a) Strict Locality Rule - standard determined by professionals in that community (b) Modified Locality Rule - standard determined by professionals in like communities (c) National Standard - Standard is that of reasonable professional in that field with the professional belongs.

Front 55

"Common Knowledge" - Exception to the Professional Standard

Back 55

a common knowlege exception withdraws the requirement of expert testimony about professional standards in some medical malpractice cases. Those cases involved either gross lack of care, non-complex matters of diagnosis, and custodial or routine hospital care.

Front 56

Professional Standard vs. Prudent Patient for Informed Consent.

Back 56

Physcians owe patients a duty f informed consent that mandates providing patients with information prior to patients agreeing to medical work. ONe view defines the needed information according to a professional standard; another view asks what information a prduent patient would want to have. Causation is an element in these cases, so that whatever standard defines the required information, a plaintiff who calism injury because of inadequate information must show that the lack of information caused the patient to undergo the procedure.

Front 57

Duty Owed to Trepassers

Back 57

In most places, the duty a landowner owes to a trespasser is to refrrain form intentional, or wanton injurious conduct.

Front 58

Attractive Nuisance

Back 58

attractive nuisance protects some child trespassers from application of the ordinary limited duty rules applicable to trespasser land owner cases. A childs lack of knoweldge of the risk is a crucial element, although the restaement idefnites a group of factors for the application of the doctrine which include: (a) the place where the condition exists is one upon which the possessor knows or has reason to know that children are likely to trespass, and (b) the condition is one which the possessor knows or has reason to know and which realizes or shoud realize will involve an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily harm to such children, and (c) the children because of their youth do not discover the condition or realize the risk involved in intermeddling with it or in coming within the area made dangerouis by it, and (d) the utility to the possessor of maintaining the dondition and the burden of eliminating the danger are slight as compared with the wrik to children involved and the possessor fails to exercise reasonable care to eliminate the danger or otherwise to protect the children

Front 59

Unreasonable Danger and Attractive Nuisance

Back 59

The unreasonable danger aspect of the attractive nuisance doctrine can be crucial. Also, judical resolution of the scope of danger can preclude application of the attractive nuisance doctrine that would otherwise have allowed a jury to evaluate the defendant's conduct

Front 60

Invitee

Back 60

A land entrant is an invitee if he or she is invited to enter or remain on the land: as a member of the public for a purpose for which the land is held open to the public; or for a purpose connected with business dealings with the possessor of the land. Duty owed to a an invitee is to exercise ordinary care with respect to risks the land possessor knows or should know with reasonable inspection.

Front 61

Licensee

Back 61

A land entrant is a licensee if he or she is invited in any other way or for any other purposes. Social guests are usually licensees. Duty to licensee is ordinary care to warn about or make safe a danger that the possessor knows and the licensee does not know

Front 62

They Duty of Care in Slip-in-Fall Cases:

1) Constructive Notice Doctrine

2) Mode of Operation Doctrine

Back 62

To recover in a slip and fall case, a plainitff must do more than show that a hazard was on the floor of a defendant's premises. The plaintiff must show that the hazard was unreasonable. This requires a finding that the hazard was known or reasonably knowable to the defendant.

The constrive notice doctrine allows a plaintiff to satisfy the reasonably knowable element with circumstantial evidence about the hazard itself (supporting a finding that the hazard was on the floor for a significant period of time.

The Mode of Operation dcotrine allows a plainitff to satify that element with evidence showing the overall nature of the defendant's enterprise (supporting a finding that hazards are always likely to be on the floor.

Front 63

Open and Obvious Hazards

Back 63

Land occupiers ordinarily have no duties with regard to natural accumulations of snow or water. Also, in many jurisdictions, land occupiers are free from obligtations with regard to "open and obvious" hazards.

Front 64

Duty to Protect from Third Party Criminal Conduct

Back 64

Landowners and occupeiers owe a duty to invitees to protect them from foreseeable criminal conduct by third parties. courts use different tests for defining the foreseeablity required for this duty: prior similar incidents and totality of circumstances

Case:
Seibert v. Vic Regnier Builders "Women is Shot by Criminal In Parking Garage"

Front 65

Liability for Landlords

Back 65

Landlords generally are immune from liability to tenants and tenants guests for injuries related to dangerous conditions on the leased premises, except under these conditions: (a) undisclosed dangerious conditions known to lessor and unknown to lessee (b) conditions dangerious to persons outside the premeises present at time of lease (c) premises leased for admission of the public (d) parts of premises retained in lessor's control (e) instances where lessor contracts to repair (f) instances of lessor's negligence in making repairs.

Front 66

Modern Approach to Land Lord Liability

Back 66

the trespass-licensee-invitee system has been hard to administer and does not seem to provide fair results in cases involving legal entrants on land. The trichology has been rejected in many jurisdictions for a more modern two-category system treating entrants in classes: legal entrants and non-legal entrants. A duty of reasonable care is owed to legal entrants. While landowners are held to adhere from intentional and wanton recklessness for non-legal entrants

Front 67

Duty to Rescue

Back 67

An individual has no duty to rescue or offer first adit to another individual, but this general rule is subject to exceptoins for innkeepers, common carriers, and others who invited the public onto their land. Defendants covered by the exception must use reasonable care to aid a sick or injured individual.

Front 68

Rescue Doctrine

Back 68

One who creates a situation of peril has a duty to an individual who attempts a rescue in response to that situation. Normal proximate cause rules apply in an action brought by a rescuer (It bars the defendant from claiming the plaintiff assumed the risk).

Front 69

Factors to Determine if a Person is a Rescuer

Back 69

(1) The defendant was negligent to the person rescued, and such negligence caused the peril
(2) the peril or apperance of peril was imminent
(3) A reasonably prudent person would have concluded such peril or apperance of peril existed
(4) The rescuer acted with reasonable care in effectuating the rescue

Front 70

Firefighters Rule

Back 70

The Firefighters rule bars professional rescuers like police or fire fighters from negligence-based recovery against those whose negligent conduct creates an occasion for their work.

Front 71

Duty for Professionals to Protect Third Parties

Back 71

When a mental health care professionals identifies or should identify a specific and immediate threat to a third party from the professionals patient, the professional must excercise reasonable care to protect that third party with a warning.

Front 72

Duty for Professionals to Protect Third Parties from Disease

Back 72

Physicans may be liable to perosns infected by a patient if the physcian negligently fails to diagnose a contagoius disease, or having diagnosed the illness, fails to warn family members or others who are foreseeably at risk of exposure.

Front 73

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress

1) Impact Rule
2) Zone of Danger

Back 73

Impact rule: The impact rule requires that there be some kind of physical injury and that the plaintiff suffer severe emotional distress from the defendant's negligence

Zone of Danger: The zone of danger requires only that the plaintiff was in the zone of danger created by the defendant's negligence and does not require that the plaintiff suffered physical injury but severe emotional distress

Front 74

Bystander Recovery

Back 74

Bystander recovery allows an individual a cause of action for emotional distress caused by seeing a person seriously injured by a defendant's negligence, if the individual: (1) ist at the scene, and sees the injury directly, and (2) has a close relationship with the seriously injured person.

Front 75

Bystander Recovery Limited to Family Members

Back 75

For bystander Recovery, plaintiff's relationship to immediate victim must be familia relationship the relationship between immediate family members is close enough to supporth the claim as a matter of law. other family members relationships will be judbed by the fact-finder with regard to closeness. A prior decision making recovery possible for individuals in non-familial relationships such as fiancee or lover was rejected.

Front 76

Recovery of Emotional Distress for Property (Such as a Pet)

Back 76

Observing serious injury to one's dog (or other pet/property) cannot be a basis for the type of bystander recovery sometimes available where the injury is suffered by a close relative. A cause of action for emotional distress suffered as a result of destruction of property is not recognized

Front 77

Mere Economic Loss

Back 77

A plaintiff who suffers ecnoomic harm related to a defendant's negligent conduct but who is free from physical impact to self or property is realted to that conduct has no cause of action for the economic harm.

Front 78

When Mere Economic Loss is Actionable (Minority Exception)

Back 78

mere economic loss claim may be actionable where the plaintiff was particularly foreseeable in terms of type of person, certainty of their presence, approximate numbers of those in the class, and type of economic expectations that would be disrupted.

Case: Peoples Express Airlin v. Consolidation Rail Corp - "Train with Volatile Gas Explodes .. Airline Sues for Economic Loss"

Front 79

Wrongful Birth

Back 79

medical malpractice principles support a mother's recovery for unusual expenses related to the support of a child born with birth defects, where defendant's negligence prevented the mother from terminating the pregnancy

Front 80

Primary Assumption of Risk

Back 80

Primary assmption of Risk is simply an alternative expressino that the defendant was not negligent because there was no duty owed or there was no breach of an existing duty.

Front 81

Primary Assumption of Risk and Skiing

Back 81

A Statute that bars liability for injuries caused by an inherent risk of skiing applies to risks that are desired by participants and risk that cannot be eliminated with reasonable care.

Front 82

No duty Rule in Sporting Events

Back 82

a no-duty rule applies to operators of baseball facilities (and other sports facilities) for inherent risk associated with operating such a facility