BLT&E-7e: Practice Quiz
Chapter 5:
Torts and Cyber Torts
1. The basic purpose of tort law is to:
a. provide remedies for the invasion of protected interests.
b. punish criminal wrongdoers.
c. ensure that Congress does not overstep its legal authority.
d. make sure that citizens follow appropriate immigration regulations.
Answers:
a. Correct. The basic purpose of tort law is to provide remedies when
legally protected interests have been invaded.
b. Incorrect. This is not the basic purpose of tort law.
c. Incorrect. Tort law is not primarily concerned with the scope of
Congress’s legal authority.
d. Incorrect. The basic purpose of tort law is not to make sure that
citizens follow appropriate immigration regulations.
2. If Sam threatens Jill with a knife but doesn’t, in fact, touch her, Jill may sue for
________________ if she honestly believed that Sam could hurt her.
a. battery
b. felony
c. assault
d. misdemeanor
Answers:
a. Incorrect. A battery requires an unwelcome touching.
b. Incorrect. Private parties do not sue others for felonies. Felonies are
crimes, and the government charges people with felonies under the
criminal law.
c. Correct. An assault requires that the victim be reasonably
apprehensive about, or fearful of, an offensive or harmful contact.
d. Incorrect. Governments, not private parties, charge people with crimes
categorized as misdemeanors.
3. If you defame someone, you injure:
a. yourself.
b. that person’s good reputation.
c. the administrative branch.
d. the judiciary.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. You injure yourself only in so far as you subject yourself to a
lawsuit.
b. Correct. Defamation involves a harm to someone’s good reputation.
c. Incorrect. The administrative branch of government as an entity is not
harmed by false statements about its reputation.
d. Incorrect. The judicial branch of government as an entity is not
harmed by false statements about its reputation.
4. Which of the following IS NOT an element of the tort of fraudulent
misrepresentation?
a. A causal connection between the misrepresentation and the injury
suffered.
b. A lack of intent to cause reliance on the misrepresentation.
c. Damages suffered as a result of reliance on the misrepresentation.
d. Justifiable reliance by the party that was deceived.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. This causal connection is an essential element of the tort.
b. Correct. Rather than show a lack of intent, the plaintiff must show
intent to cause reliance on the misrepresentation.
c. Incorrect. The plaintiff must show that he or she suffered damages as
a result of his or her reliance on the misrepresentation.
d. Incorrect. The plaintiff must also show that he or she was justified in
relying on the defendant’s misrepresentation.
5. Which of the following IS NOT an element of the tort of wrongful interference
with a contractual relationship?
a. A valid, enforceable contract must exist between two parties.
b. A third party must be aware that the contract exists.
c. This third party must unintentionally cause one of the parties to break the
contract.
d. This third party must intentionally cause one of the parties to break the
contract.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. If no valid, enforceable contract exists, there is no tort of
wrongful interference with that contract.
b. Incorrect. The third party must be aware of the existence of the
contract.
c. Correct. A third party must intentionally cause one of the parties to
break the contract.
d. Incorrect. The third party must intentionally cause one of the parties to
break the contract.
6. Assume that Liza knows that Jesse and Frank have a contract for Frank to
paint Jesse’s portrait. Liza tells Frank all sorts of awful (and untrue) things
about Jesse to convince Frank not to work with Jesse. If Frank then tells
Jesse that he is no longer interested in painting her portrait, Liza could be
sued for:
a. appropriation.
b. libel.
c. wrongful interference.
d. infringement.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. Appropriation involves the use of someone’s image or
likeness without that person’s consent.
b. Incorrect. Libel involves a false statement in writing or in another form
of permanent medium that harm’s someone’s good reputation.
c. Correct. Liza has wrongfully interfered with Jesse and Frank’s
contractual relationship.
d. Incorrect. Infringement involves the violation of an intellectual property
right, such as the right to the exclusive use of a copyrighted or
trademarked product.
7. Which of the following DOES NOT constitute trespass to land?
a. Without permission, you tunnel under your neighbor’s land.
b. With permission, you walk across your neighbor’s land.
c. Without permission you shoot an arrow across your neighbor’s land.
d. Without permission, your neighbor sets up a vegetable stand on your land.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. This tunneling would constitute trespass to land.
b. Correct. By giving you permission to walk on his or her land, your
neighbor eliminates the possibility that you have committed trespass.
c. Incorrect. Causing something to cross your neighbor’s land, without
his or her permission, is trespass to land.
d. Incorrect. Your neighbor commits a trespass to land by staying on
your land without your permission.
8. If your actions harm someone else but you never intended to cause that harm,
you may be liable for the tort of:
a.
b.
c.
d.
conversion.
nuisance.
negligence.
infliction of emotional distress.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. Conversion involves the wrongful appropriation and
retention of another’s personal property.
b. Incorrect. Nuisance involves using one’s land in a manner that
interferes with another’s use and enjoyment of his or her own land.
c. Correct. As long as you owed a duty of reasonable care to the person
you harmed and that person suffered a legally recognizable injury, you
may be liable for negligence.
d. Incorrect. To prove this tort you must have intended harm.
9. The duty of care requires you to:
a. help all strangers you run across.
b. help only those strangers who are suffering from some injury.
c. help only those strangers who are experiencing an emergency.
d. act as a reasonable person would act in the same circumstances.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. Such a standard would impose a tremendous burden on
people.
b. Incorrect. There is no legal duty (in the vast majority of states) to be a
“good Samaritan.”
c. Incorrect. You have no legal duty to help people in emergencies,
though you may have a moral duty to do so.
d. Correct. As a member of civil society, this level of care is legally
required of you.
10. One of the legal difficulties posed by defamatory remarks made online is
that:
a. it makes it difficult for Internet service providers (ISPs) to stay in business,
because they are held liable for the defamatory remarks made by those
using their services.
b. the Internet makes it so easy to locate those who make the defamatory
statements that the courts are overburdened with tort lawsuits.
c. defendants in online defamation suits retaliate by spamming the plaintiffs,
thus overloading the plaintiffs’ Web sites and causing them to suffer
further harm.
d. it is difficult to learn the identity of the person who made the defamatory
remarks.
Answers:
a. Incorrect. ISPs were exempted from such liability by the
Communications Decency Act of 1996.
b. Incorrect. In the online environment, it is, in fact, very difficult to locate
those who commit defamation via the Internet.
c. Incorrect. Spamming plaintiffs in defamation lawsuits has yet to
become a problem.
d Correct. Because of this, those who are the targets of defamatory
comments in the online world find it difficult to obtain a remedy for the
harms suffered.