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Law Notes Tort Law Notes

Tor Ture Law Complete Notes

Updated Tor Ture Law Complete Notes Notes

Tort Law Notes

Tort Law

Approximately 69 pages

Okay, so I study by grabbing information from lectures, textbooks, study groups and, pretty much anywhere someone is willing to have a chat about a relevant topic. I then curate them into this handy numbered and subtitled format to save me time in the long run - and in turn, to save you time as well. My notes are simplistically complex by outlining the legal jargon paired kindly with real people language (like a nice cheese and wine combo), you'll be nailing the exams in a flash. Good luck, I hop...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Tort Law Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

Table of Contents

Week 1 – The Role and Function of Tort Law 2

WEEK 1 – PRIVATE NUISANCE 4

WEEK 2 – NELGIGENCE 7

WEEK 3 – DUTY OF CARE: MENTAL INJURY 9

WEEK 4 – OCCUPIERS LIABILITY 14

WEEK 4 – PUBLIC AUTHORITIES 16

WEEK 5 – BREACH OF DUTY 19

WEEK 5 – BREACH OF DUTY 22

WEEK 7 – CAUSATION 25

WEEK 7 – CAUSATION 2 28

WEEK 8 – DEFENCES 30

WEEK 8 – DEFENSES 30

WEEK 9 – CONCURRENT LIABILITY: VICARIOUS LIABILIABY & NON-DELIGABLE DUTY 32

WEEK 9 – DAMAGES 37

WEEK 10 & 11 – THEORETICAL TORTS 40

LAWS1061 – Torts

Week 1 – The Role and Function of Tort Law

  • What is tort law?

    • Concerns the obligations of persons living in a crowded society to respect the safety, property and personality of their neighbours

    • As an a priori matter cause and effect

    • As a duty of compensate for wrongfully caused harm ex post after the fact

  • Common law and statute

    • “crisis”

      • Caused by an ever-increasing level of litigation producing ever increasing damages awards

      • Created by an extremely litigious society bend on not taking responsibility for an individuals own actions

    • Aims of Australian tort reform process

      • To reduce litigation

      • Reduce compensation payable to insurers and to make insurance affordable

    • Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW)

      • Impacts multiple torts in different ways

      • Based on and modifies the common law, but does not replace it

      • Definition of trespass, nuisance, negligence and breach of statutory duty are important

  • The role of tort law

    • Compensatory function

      • To compensate people injured for a wrong

      • Sometimes compensation is not enough to cover all the damages EG quadriplegic

      • Problematic

        • Other ways of spreading both the risk of harm and the liability to pay would be more effective

  • Basis of liability

  • Theoretical approaches to tort law

    • Deterrent function, law and economics, and insurance

      • If the wrongdoer is punished or made to pay for an accident he or she will try to avoid such accidents in the future

      • The fear of criminal prosecution is more likely

      • Guido Calabresi and Richard Posner – the goal of accident law should be to reduce the costs of accidents

      • For many years though tort law ignored the existence of insurance

      • Insurance prevents the deterrent function of tort law from operating by preventing the damages flowing from the wrong doer

    • Corrective justice and civil resource theory

      • Moral rights

      • Weinrib – responsibility: when is a person who causes harm responsible to compensate for the harm caused?

      • Focused on individuals and their obligations

      • Civil recourse theory focuses on the sense of being wronged and that when people are wronged their natural instinct is to seek vengeance

    • Distributive justice and risk allocation

      • A way of distributing goods, risk and looses

      • Also distributing risk EG benefits of vaccines

      • Compensation is for the purpose of placing the plaintiff back into the position they were before the wrong was done

    • Feminist theory of tort law

      • From whose point of view has the law been made?

      • Does the law perpetuate patriarchy or male domination

      • Concerned with the valuing of women’s work for damage purposes

      • And rationality as men are considered more rational then women so it would not be out of character for them to be subject to injury

  • HOT COFFEE DOCUMENTRY

    • Liebeck v McDonalds 1992

    • An elderly women was severely burnt after spilling coffee on herself sitting in the passenger seat of a stopped car

    • Stella Liebeck went into shock and went to hospital

    • $10,000 medical bills with 16% of her body burnt and some were 3rd degree

    • Unreasonably hot and therefore unreasonably dangerous

    • The media coverage changed the premise and facts of the story creating Liebeck to look like the villain

    • $2.9million in compensation reduced to less than $500,000 after media

  • Need tort reform

    • Explosion of litigation producing unreasonably large damages awards

    • Curb frivolous suits filed by litigious plaintiffs with minor injuries who believe that they deserve large damages awards

    • Ensure that people take personal responsibility for their action

WEEK 1 – PRIVATE NUISANCE

  • What is it?

    • Arose out of the action on the case

    • Protects a person’s right to use and enjoyment of their land

    • In order to establish an action of private nuisance the plaintiff must establish they have a title to sue, the defendant had requisite knowledge of the nuisance, the nuisance was substantial or unreasonable

  • Title to sue

    • Only the person with rights in or over the property has standing to sue

    • The individual must:

      • Be the owner or tenant of the property

        • Unless has a reversionary interest in the land

      • Be in actual possession of the property

      • Has the right to exclusive possession

  • Interests protected

    • The interests protected by nuisance include those to do with the land itself

  • Interference with enjoyment of the land

    • Can be tangible or intangible

    • Tangible include:

      • Indirect physical injury to the land

    • Intangible include:

      • Sensible personal discomfort

  • Protection of certain rights relating to land

    • Interference with rights including easements and support of land

      • Interference with the right to support of the land in its natural state so that if the defendant excavates in such a way that the neighbors land collapses, is a common law nuisance

  • Interests not protected

    • Certain invasions do not qualify as private nuisance

      • No right to natural light

      • Or to view from his property

      • Others being able to see into a building does not constitute

  • Unreasonable interference

    • There must be give and take between a defendant’s right to use property and the plaintiffs right to enjoy their property

    • The court must seek to balance the competing interests of both parties

  • Assessment of the defendants activity

    • The defendants actions and utility or usefulness of the defendants conduct are considerations in assessing the give and take

  • Who can be sued

    • Proof of fault is required to be sued

    • The creator of nuisance:

      • The occupier of land is not always liable for the nuisance

      • The creator of nuisance is...

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