Hi, everybody.
Welcome to Module 5.
In this module, we shift from contracts
and intentional torts to the basic principles of negligence.
We also talk about strict liability and vicarious liability.
The book will focus on the concepts of duty breach
injury causation, and explains the principles
of vicarious liability
and applies these to healthcare organizations.
As we started discussing last week, tort law is a branch
of civil law that deals with liability for individuals
for wrongs committed against others.
The elements of tort law typically include duty of care,
so that you have to show that there was an actual duty.
Sometimes, in some situations, a reasonable person
has to take reasonable steps
to avoid causing harm to others.
You also have to have a breach of that duty,
and so you have to show in a tort case
that someone failed to fulfill that duty of care.
They might do that by acting negligently or recklessly,
or as last week, intentionally.
You also have to show causation so that there's this breach,
and then that breach is the causation
of harm or an injury to the plaintiff.
You also have to show damages.
Just because something went wrong, something bad happened,
if there's not really damages,
then courts are usually not going
to award money in that situation.
So you really have to show physical injury, property damage,
all caused by another party's breach of duty.
Now, torts can be either intentional or accidental,
and the degree of fault to establish liability
can vary depending on the type of tort.
In a negligence claim,
the defendant must have fallen below that standard
of care required by law.
In intentional tort, the defendant
must have intended to cause that harm.
These are kind of difficult concepts on paper,
but this just describes that process that you would have
to do in the courtroom.
If you had a judge or a jury deciding case,
these are the type of things that you need to show to them.
These elements have to be proven for a plaintiff
to succeed in their claim.
The specific requirements for each element
can vary depending on jurisdiction
or the type of tort involved.
Often that has to do with state law, so state laws
can be different
about how these different factors work in the courtroom.
I do wanna just briefly discuss comparative negligence,
and you might see that in the materials this week.
Comparative negligence is kind of this idea
that sometimes you have to determine the allocation
of responsibility for damages in personal injury cases
where there might have been fault by both parties.
The basic idea behind comparative negligence
is the liability for damages
should be apportioned between parties rather
than one party paying all the damages
if maybe even the plaintiff
who was harmed, if they were also responsible.
Another important concept
that you'll see in the materials this week
is vicarious liability.
You might even see that word respondeat superior.
This is a legal principle that holds that one party
can be responsible for the actions
of another even if they really weren't involved.
This type of liability arises
when employer is held responsible
for the acts of the employee
if the employee was committing those acts in the course
or in the scope of the employment.
You might have thought about this concept
as you read the prompt for an as your assignment this week.
The basis for vicarious liability
is the employer/employee relationship.
The employer is held responsible
because they have the right to control
what the employee does.
They direct the work of the employee,
they benefit from the work of the employee.
It's important to note that vicarious liability
only applies under certain circumstances
and is limited in scope of the employment relationship.
So for instance, an employer is not vicariously liable
for an employee's action committed outside
of work for actions that are legal
or outside the scope of an employee's job duties.
So there could be instances where not only
is a nurse negligent in a hospital setting,
but the hospital is also negligent
because they oversee, employ,
and give direction to that nurse.
Now, if that nurse does something negligent at home
on their own time, then the hospital really isn't liable
through this theory for that.
One other topic you might see this week is strict liability.
Strict liability is a legal principle
that imposes liability on a party without the need
to prove fault or negligence.
So basically, in the court process,
you don't have to do that part.
Strict liability means that the individual
or entity can be held responsible for damages
or harm, regardless whether they intended to cause the harm
or even aware that the harm might result.
So strict liability is often used in very specific areas
of loss, such as products where the goal
is to protect the consumers from dangerous
or defective products.
Under this principle,
a manufacturer can be held strictly liable
for damages caused by a product,
regardless whether the manufacturer was aware of any defect
or took any reasonable steps to prevent the harm.
Another example, probably a helpful example
of this idea is the owner
of a very dangerous animal.
In some jurisdiction, the owner
of the dangerous animal may be held strictly liable
for any harm caused by the animal, regardless
of whether the owner was aware
of the animal's dangerous propensities
or took reasonable steps to prevent the harm.
An example could be a zoo.
If you have a zoo and you know
that there's an animal
that has attacked multiple zookeepers,
whether or not the zoo is negligent,
so even if the zoo takes all these steps to make sure
that the animal has no contact with the public,
with zookeepers,
but someone you know takes active steps to go
into that cage and is injured by the animal, that idea
of strict liability can come into play,
because whether or not the zoo was negligent,
the zoo is housing a dangerous animal,
and so maybe nothing that they do
should be considered
because they know that they have
a very dangerous animal that can hurt someone.
It's important to know that strict liability is different
from vicarious liability, which holds one party responsible
for the actions of another.
Strict liability is based on the actions
of the defendant themselves rather
than the relationship to another party.
Strict liability is complex concept,
it has specific requirements,
and it can vary from state to state in regards
to the circumstances of the case.
There's a bit for us to get going on for torts this week,
and I'll see you in the discussion form.