Negligence in law of tort means a tort committed by failure to act as a reasonable person to someone to whom he/she owes a duty, as required by law under the circumstances. Further, negligent torts are not deliberate, and there must be an injury resulting from the breach of the duty. Examples of negligent torts are car accidents, slip and fall accidents, and most medical malpractice cases.

The five elements of negligence in law of torts are explained in greater detail below.

1. Duty
The outcome of some negligence cases depends on whether the defendant is liable to the plaintiff. When the law recognizes that the relationship between the defendant and the plaintiff requires the defendant to take action against the plaintiff in a certain way, an obligation arises. The judge, not the jury, usually determines whether the defendant has a duty of care to the plaintiff, and if a reasonable person determines that there is an obligation in a particular situation, it is usually considered to be an obligation.

For example, if the defendant loads bags of grain into a truck and hits a child with one of the bags, the first question to be solved is whether the defendant is responsible for the child. If the loading dock is close to a public place, such as a public sidewalk, and the child is just passing by, then the court is more likely to determine that the defendant is responsible for the child. On the other hand, if the child violated private property and the defendant did not know that the child was present at the time of the accident, the court is unlikely to hold the defendant responsible.

2. Breach of duty
A plaintiff must show that the defendant owes him or her a duty in addition to proving that the defendant breached his or her duty to the plaintiff. A defendant violates such a responsibility when he or she fails to fulfil it with reasonable care. The issue of whether a defendant breached a duty of care is considered by a jury as a question of fact, unlike whether a duty exists. In the example above, a jury would consider whether the defendant handled the grain bags with reasonable care when they were near the child.

3. Cause in Fact
A plaintiff must prove that the defendant’s activities were the actual cause of the plaintiff’s injury under classic negligence principles. This is known as “but-for” causation, which means that the plaintiff’s injury would not have occurred if it hadn’t been for the defendant’s activities. The youngster in the above scenario could establish this factor by demonstrating that the child would not have suffered harm had it not been for the defendant’s careless act of flinging the grain.

4. Proximate Cause
In a negligence case, proximate cause refers to the extent of a defendant’s liability. In a negligence case, the defendant is only liable for the harms that may have been predicted as a result of his or her actions. The plaintiff cannot prove that the defendant’s conduct were the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s damages if the damages are outside the extent of the dangers that the defendant might have foreseen.

The child would establish proximate cause in the case above by demonstrating that the defendant might have anticipated the harm that would have occurred from the bag striking the youngster. On the other hand, if the harm is caused by something unrelated to the defendant’s behavior, the plaintiff will have a harder time proving this aspect. Assume that the child’s bicycle, which he was riding, gets damaged when he is struck by the grain bag.
The boy and his father drive to a shop three days later to have the bicycle repaired. The father and son are struck by another car on their way to the business. Although the harm to the child and the damage to the bicycle may be within the scope of the harm that the defendant may have caused by his actions, the defendant could not have predicted that the father and son would be harmed three days later while on their way to have the bicycle fixed. As a result, the father and son would be unable to fulfil the proximate causation requirement.

5. Damages
In a negligence action, the plaintiff must show that a legally recognized harm occurred, which is frequently in the form of physical injury to a person or property. It’s not enough that the defendant didn’t take reasonable precautions. A person to whom the defendant owed a duty of care must suffer actual losses as a result of the defendant’s failure to exercise reasonable care.

Aishwarya Says:

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