CHANAKYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, NYAYA NAGAR, PATNA

LAW OF TORTS

TOPIC: TORT OF NEGLIGENCE

SUBMITTED TO:

MRS. SUSHMITA SINGH

FACULTY OF LAW

SUBMITTED BY:

MEHUL ANAND

ROLL NO.1835

BBA LLB(HONS.)

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 INTRODUCTION
Negligence law falls under the legal category known as torts, a term for when someone harms
someone else. The person being sued is known as the tortfeasor.

Torts are split by the degree of culpability into intentional, negligence and strict liability.
Negligence is in between intentional and strict liability on the intentionality scale, and would
include situations such as a car accident, or accidentally lighting property on fire with your
candles. Its when you harm someone or their property without meaning to do harm.

In a lawsuit there are things known as elements of the cause of action, which is what the person
is suing about. And when they sue, the person has to prove all the essential elements, meaning
they prove they are telling the truth about what happened, the tortfeasor is liable for the damage.

There are four essential elements of negligence: duty, breach, causation, and injury.

1. Duty

Duty is the responsibility someone has in regards to another. Doctors have a duty to their
patients, parents have a duty to watch out for their kids, and people driving have a duty to look
out for others on the road. There are different standards of care that people can owe to each other
depending on the relationship. The standard for average dealings with strangers is that of
the reasonable person. How would a reasonable person have acted in this situation?

2. Breach

Breach is when someone fails in their duty. For example, the doctor did not follow up with the
patient after surgery as quickly or often as the industry standard said he should, the parent left the
child alone for a few hours, or the person driving her car looked down at her phone to check a
text, thus taking her eyes off the road.

Just because everybody does something doesnt mean its reasonable. For example, many people
look at their phone when driving occasionally, even just to make a quick call. This would
usually be found to be a breach of the duty to take care while driving.

The primary exception to this is for professionals. In this type of situation, for example a doctor
being sued for malpractice, then one would take into consideration industry standards to see if
that persons actions constituted a breach of duty.

3. Causation

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 The third element is causation, and this is the hardest part to prove. Causation involves two
parts:

The tortfeasor has to be the but-for cause of the injury, as in but-for the person driving,
the person walking would not have the broken leg. Or but-for the doctor performing surgery to
get the tumor out, the patient would still be alive that day.

The second part is known as proximate cause or direct cause. This means that the
tortfeasor caused a direct action that sets in motion an unbroken chain of events leading to the
injury with no interference to break the chain. It can get more complicated if multiple events are
joined together to make the injury happen, any one of which taken away would have prevented
the injury, but the general idea is one cause leads to a chain of events that leads to the injury
without something interfering.

So if Driver A goes through the crosswalk and cuts off the pedestrian then keeps going, and then
the pedestrian walks out into the road a few seconds later than she would have otherwise, and
gets hit by Driver B, Driver A is a but-for cause, but not a proximate one, since there was an
intervening force, which was Driver B.

4. Injury

Injury is fairly self-explanatory. For example, someone is dead, has a broken leg, or has ruined
property. Without injury, there are no damages.

This should mean if a person comes out fine with you almost hitting them with your car or a
piano then youre safe, but it doesnt always. That person still can claim emotional
damages because you scared them by almost hurting them. This doesnt mean theyll win in
court, but they can still sue.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
According to conventional wisdom, negligence is a unique tort. It is different from strict liability
because it is based on fault. Although it shares fault with intentional torts, negligences version of
fault is different because it arises from the objective standard of reasonableness. This orthodox
view has existed for nearly a century and has never been challenged. Even today, no one
questions the strength of tort laws theoretical superstructure or the truth of the assumptions upon
which it is based. In fact, the American Law Institute, which currently is in the process of
restating tort laws basic principles, has made no effort to alter or even reexamine this
framework. This article contends that such a reexamination is not only desirable, but necessary.
Focusing on the theory of negligence, it exposes the many faults in tort laws current theoretical
paradigm. The analysis proceeds in four parts. The first part reconsiders and compares the

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concepts of fault and reasonableness. It argues that the two ideas are not synonymous, and
concludes that a classical-liberal conception of reasonableness comes closest to explaining and
justifying the modern theory of negligence. To defend this conclusion, the second part of the
article turns to two of negligences hard cases: the no-duty-to-rescue rule and the standard of
care for mental incompetents. It reveals that the fairness-based notion of reasonableness provides
a far more satisfying account of these difficult doctrines than the more deontological concept of
fault. With the laws internal inconsistency resolved, part three explores negligences external fit
with other tort theories, beginning with intentional torts. It shows that negligence and intentional
torts are more alike than different, sharing both a flexible approach to procedure and a
substantive commitment to reasonableness. The last part continues the analysis of fit, this time
examining the supposedly more impenetrable barrier between negligence and strict liability.
Instead of supporting this divide, however, it shows that negligence already contains many de
facto strict liability doctrines, and with its core concept of reasonableness, possesses all it needs
to relax or stiffen its requirements in all types of cases, including cases now covered by theories
of strict liability.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Who is responsible for a slip and fall accident? The owner or the person injured?
It depends. Both the property owner as well as the injured person can be held to varying degrees
of responsibility for an injury. The property owner has a responsibility to keep property safe.
Each person has a duty to watch where they are going, as well as realize that there are things that
fall or spill onto walking surfaces.

What is a hazardous condition?

A hazardous condition is a situation where there is potential for injury. Hazardous conditions
can be permanent (such as a broken stair) or temporary (as in the case of ice on the sidewalk).
Property owners are often responsible for permanent conditions, because they should have
known about the situation. But injuries that occur due to temporary conditions they may not have
had knowledge of may not be their responsibility. A factor in temporary hazards is did the owner
have enough opportunity to realize the situation and correct it?

What is a slip & fall accident?

Slip and fall accidents are a personal injury and are one type of "fall down" accidents. There are
four general types of fall accidents:
1. Trip-and-fall accidents, where there is a foreign object in the walking path
2. Stump-and-fall accidents, where there is an impediment in the walking surface
3. Step-and-fall accidents, where there is an unexpected failure or hole in the walking surface,
and
4. Slip-and-fall accidents, in which the interface of the shoe and the floor fails

HYPOTHESIS
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The researcher here presumes that the tort of negligence is different from other torts as it is based
on fault. But it is not dealt property since it is a very wide in scope.

TENTATIVE CHAPTERIZATION
1) INTRODUCTION
2) ELEMENTS OF NEGLIENCE
3) REMEDIES IN NEGLIGENCE
4) GENERAL DEFENCES AVAILABLE
5) LANDMARK CASES IN NEGLIGENCE
6) RESEARCH QUESTIONS

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The researcher consulted following things while making the project.
BOOKS- LAW OF TORTS- R K BANGIA
LAW OF TORTS- RATAN LAL DHIRAJ LAL
TEXTBOOK ON TORTS- MICHAEL A JONES
CONSTITUTION OF INDIA- D D BASU
WEBSITES- QUOVANT.COM
NATIONALPARALEGAL.EDU

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