The Landscape of Civil Wrongs: Negligence, Strict Liability, and Nuisance

A: After intentional torts, we pivot to negligence, which is really the heart of modern tort law. It's about a failure to exercise reasonable care, and a plaintiff has to prove four prima facie elements to succeed. First, the defendant owed a Duty of care to the plaintiff. Second, they Breached that duty. Third, that breach was the legal Cause of the plaintiff's harm. And finally, the plaintiff suffered actual Legally recognized Damages.

B: So, it's always about those four steps: duty, breach, causation, and damages?

A: Exactly. Let's start with duty, which often hinges on the 'standard of care.' The default is what we call the Reasonably Prudent Person, or RPP. This is an objective standard; it's not about the defendant's 'best judgment' but rather what a hypothetical, reasonable person would do in similar circumstances. It incorporates physical characteristics, but not mental impairments.

A: When we talk about duty, a critical concept is the 'zone of foreseeable danger,' famously illustrated in the Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. case. Essentially, a defendant only owes a duty of care to those who are within the foreseeable reach of harm from their actions, not to the world at large.

A: Moving to Breach, we often look to the Learned Hand Formula from U.S. v. Carroll Towing: B less than P times L, where B is the Burden of adequate precautions, P is the Probability of harm, and L is the Magnitude of the Loss. If B is less than PL, then failing to take precautions is a breach. Another key concept here is Res Ipsa Loquitur, Latin for 'the thing speaks for itself,' used when the plaintiff can't pinpoint the exact negligent act, but the incident wouldn't ordinarily occur without negligence and the defendant had exclusive control.

A: For Causation, we distinguish between 'actual cause' and 'proximate cause.' Actual cause, or 'cause in fact,' uses the 'but-for' test: would the injury have occurred but for the defendant's negligence? Proximate cause, or 'scope of liability,' is about foreseeability—was the type of harm suffered reasonably foreseeable from the defendant's conduct?

A: Finally, even if duty, breach, and causation are proven, a defendant can raise defenses. Historically, 'Contributory Negligence' was harsh, completely barring recovery if the plaintiff was even slightly at fault. Modernly, most jurisdictions use 'Comparative Negligence,' which apportions fault and reduces damages accordingly. And, of course, there's 'Assumption of Risk,' where the plaintiff knowingly and voluntarily accepts a particular risk.

A: Shifting gears now to liability without fault, we enter the realm of strict liability, where responsibility is imposed regardless of intent or carelessness. A prime example is strict liability for animals. Owners of wild animals are almost always strictly liable for harm they cause, due to their inherent dangerousness. For domestic animals, though, strict liability only applies if the owner has prior knowledge—what we call 'scienter'—of that specific animal's dangerous propensities, often termed the 'one-bite rule'.

A: Then we have abnormally dangerous activities. These are activities that pose a high degree of risk of great harm, even when reasonable care is exercised, and are not a matter of common usage, as outlined in the Restatement Section 520. Think of activities like blasting or storing highly volatile chemicals.

B: So, for these activities, it's about the nature of the activity itself, not whether someone was negligent?

A: Exactly. And that leads us directly into products liability, which also heavily relies on strict liability for manufacturing, design, and warning defects. For design defects, courts often use a 'risk-utility test' or require a 'reasonable alternative design.' In terms of warnings, the 'learned intermediary doctrine' is crucial, especially in pharmaceutical cases.

A: Finally, nuisance deals with a 'substantial and unreasonable interference' with the use and enjoyment of property. We distinguish between private nuisance—affecting one person's property—and public nuisance, which affects a common public right. Remedies can range from an injunction to permanent damages, as seen in cases like Boomer v. Atlantic Cement Co., balancing private harm against public utility.