Tort Of Negligence Case Analysis

The plaintiffs can use the tort of negligence to prove that the defendants were at fault for the accident, and that the defendants owe them the damages to cover the costs of repair and reconstruction of their properties. All three defendants can be held liable under the tort of negligence. To prove negligence the four requirements of duty of care, standard of care, damages to the plaintiff, and the causation of damage need to be present. In the situation with SaskEnergy, the tort of negligence applies because they owed the plaintiffs a duty of care. SaskEnergy owed them this because due to the gas line having extremely flammable gas it was reasonably foreseeable that if the gas line was to rupture, the plaintiffs would suffer the damages. …show more content…
They owed the plaintiffs this because the “explosion and resulting losses were caused or contributed to by the negligence of the registered owners,” (Polischuk, 2015). The defendants also owed the plaintiffs a standard of care. This standard of care was breached due to the owners of the property not using “a warning device capable of detecting an escape of natural gas; did not take reasonable steps in response to elevated natural gas levels; failed to ensure any appliances or other devices would not serve as a source of ignition for escaped natural gas; and failed to adequately inspect, monitor or maintain their portion of the gas line,” (Polischuk, 2015). Due to the breached standard of care, damages to the plaintiff resulted. These damages were that the properties and buildings of the plaintiffs had serious structural, physical, and/or foundational damages caused by the explosion. The causation of damage resulted from the carelessness of the Oldershaw property owners. The natural gas explosion that caused the damages to the plaintiff’s property would not have happened if the defendants had taken the proper steps to ensure detection was possible in case natural gas were to