INTRO TO LAW
CRIMINAL VS. CIVIL
CRIMINAL ACTIONS
• A crime is an offense against society—a public
wrong.
• Examples of criminal actions:
 Assault
 Embezzlement
 Battery
 Larceny
 Murder
 Perjury
 Rape
 Disorderly Conduct
CIVIL ACTIONS
• A civil action is an offense against an individual
• An argument between people or between people and a
business
• Examples of civil actions:
 Contract Violation
 Fraud
 False imprisonment
 Defamation
 Invasion of privacy
 Liability/Negligence
HOW ARE CIVIL AND CRIMINAL
ACTIONS DIFFERENT?
• Criminal Actions
• Brought by the government
• Government is known as
the prosecution
• Prosecution has the burden
of proof
• Guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt
• Defendant loses if found
guilty
• Usual penalty is a prison
sentence
• Civil Actions
• Brought by private citizens
• Person bringing action is
known as the plaintiff
• Plaintiff has the burden of
proof
• Proven liable with a
preponderance of the
evidence
• Defendant loses if found
liable
• Usual penalty is money
damages
TORTS
• Tort law deals with situations where a person's
behavior has unfairly caused someone else
to suffer loss or harm
• A tort is not necessarily an illegal act but
causes harm and therefore the law allows
anyone who is harmed to recover their loss
• a wrongful act that results in injury to
another's person, property, or reputation and
for which the injured party is entitled to
compensation
WHAT CAN A TORT
VICTIM COLLECT?
• An injunction (court order) may be issued to
prevent a tort - preventative
• The usual remedy for a tort is damages
• Lawyers handle civil lawsuits for a
percentage of the recovery
• 25% if settled before trial
• 33% if trial
• 40% if appeal
NEGLIGENCE
 Negligence is the most common tort
 Negligence can be defined as a failure to
use reasonable care, resulting in damage or
injury to another.
• Intent is not required, only carelessness
HOW TO PROVE NEGLIGENCE
• The plaintiff needs to prove four elements by
a preponderance of the evidence
• Duty
• Breach of Duty
• Causation (two parts)
• Damages
DUTY
• A legal obligation to do or not do something
• Example: If you drive a car, you have a duty
to obey the rules of the road
THE DUTY OF CARE
• The defendant had a legal duty or legal
obligation to exercise due care to the
plaintiff.
 Due care is the amount of care that a reasonable
person would exercise under similar circumstances.
THE REASONABLE PERSON
 A reasonable person would consider
 (1) the burden of taking precautions;
 (2) the likelihood of harm; and
 (3) the seriousness of the harm.
 Example: Would a reasonable person drive
down the street with a paper grocery bag over
her head?
CIRCUMSTANCES MATTER
• Circumstances are taken into consideration when
evaluating a defendant’s actions
• Acceptable characteristics that contribute to the
reasonable person:
• Physical disabilities
• If defendant is a child, the child’s age (unless doing an “adult
activity” such as driving a car)
• Defendant acted during an emergency
• Unacceptable characteristics that do not contribute
to the reasonable person
• Mental characteristics (e.g. if defendant is of below average
intelligence, he can’t defend his actions based on this)
• Intoxication
BREACH OF DUTY
• Violation of the duty
• The defendant’s conduct violated that duty
because:
• His or her conduct fell short of the standard of care.
• Or, in other words, he or she did not act like a reasonable
person would have.
PROBLEM #1: DUTY AND BREACH
Itchy comes to an uncontrolled intersection (i.e. no traffic lights or
signs) on foot. He stops at the intersection, looks both ways and
then crosses the street
Questions:
• Did Itchy act like a reasonable person?
• Did Itchy’s actions breach a duty?
PROBLEM #2: DUTY AND BREACH
Scratchy comes to an uncontrolled intersection (i.e. no traffic
lights or signs) on foot at night. He is wearing black pants, a black
sweatshirt, black shoes, black gloves and a black ski mask.
Scratchy puts his iPod headphones on and begins blasting music
at full volume. Without looking, Scratchy crosses the street
Questions:
• Did Scratchy act like a reasonable person?
• Did Scratchy’s actions breach a duty?
CAUSATION
• Cause In Fact: The breach actually caused an injury.
• Can you trace the injury back to the defendant’s
actions?
• Proximate Cause: The connection between the
breach and the injury was foreseeable and not too
remote.
• Could the defendant have foreseen or guessed
that his or her actions would cause an injury?
PROBLEM #3: CAUSATION
• Captain McAllister’s boat spills oil into Springfield Harbor. Some
of the oil sticks to docks owned by Fat Tony. One of Fat Tony’s
workers is welding on the dock and some molten metal ignites
the oil, which in turn ignites the entire dock
Questions:
• Was Captain McAllister’s spilled oil a cause in fact of the dock
fire?
• Was it the proximate cause of the dock fire?
DAMAGES
 The plaintiff suffered actual damages (medical costs, lost
wages, pain and suffering, etc.).
 Two types of damages:
• Compensatory - intended to compensate the plaintiff for
actual losses (lost wages, medical bills, pain & suffering, etc.)
• Punitive - intended to punish the defendant
DEFENSES TO NEGLIGENCE SUITS
• Contributory Negligence
• If the plaintiff’s own negligence contributed to the harm
suffered, the plaintiff cannot collect anything from the
defendant
• Comparative Negligence
• Plaintiff’s recovery from the defendant is reduced by the
percentage that the plaintiff’s own negligence contributed
to the injury
• Called Proportionate Responsibility in Texas
• In Texas, if the plaintiff is found to be over 50% responsible for his
own injuries, then he is barred from recovering any damages.
PROBLEM #4: THE BIG PICTURE
• The Simpson’s “One Fish, Two Fish,
Blowfish, Blue Fish”
• Homer eats Fugu
Questions:
• Was there negligence involved in Homer’s food poisoning?
• What precautions were taken, if any, to prevent it?
• Who was liable for the event?
• Head Chef? Assistant Chef? Homer?
• Did Homer contribute in any way?
• What damages occurred?
YOLANDA AND HER AGGRESSIVE
PUPPY
• Yolanda’s dog Lucy is very
aggressive and has bitten people
in the past. One day she takes
Lucy to the dog park and let’s her
run free. Lucy runs across the
street and bites Aaron’s leg while
he’s shooting hoops. Aaron is
rushed to the hospital where he
learns that he will need to stay
overnight and have surgery. His
medical bills reach $15,000 and
he had to miss a week of work
while his leg healed. The doctor
said he’ll never have full use of his
leg.
ANALYZING THE CASE
Questions
• Did Yolanda have a legal obligation?
• Did she breach that duty?
• Did her breach actually cause Aaron’s injury?
• Could she have foreseen that Lucy would bite
someone like Aaron?
• Are there damages in this case?
LIEBECK V. MCDONALD’S
• Stella Liebeck, 79, spilled hot coffee on herself
• 3rd degree burns on 6% of her body, lesser burns on
16%
• In hospital 8 days, lost 23 pounds
• Liebeck approached McDonald’s and asked to be
reimbursed $20,000; McDonald’s offered $800
• Liebeck hired an attorney who offered to settle out
of court for $90,000; McDonald’s refused
LIEBECK V. MCDONALD’S
• Case went to court
• McDonald’s serves coffee at 170 degrees (normally 140◦)
• At that temperature, would take 2-7 seconds to cause 3rd
degree burns
• In 10 year period, McDonald’s received 700 reports of
scalding incidents & settled for more than $500,000
LIEBECK V. MCDONALD’S
• Verdict
• Jury found McDonald’s guilty of Comparative Negligence (80%
responsible)
• Compensatory Damages
• $200,000 (medical bills, lost wages, etc.)
• Reduced by 20% to $160,000
• Punitive Damages
• $2.7 Million (based on 1-2 days coffee revenue of $1.35M)
• Judge reduced to $640,000
• Settled for undisclosed amount of <$600,000
2012 STELLA AWARDS - #7
• Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas, was
awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after
breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler
who was running inside a furniture store. The
store owners were understandably surprised
by the verdict, considering the running
toddler was her own son.
2012 STELLA AWARDS - #6
• Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles , California ,
won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his
neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda
Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice
there was someone at the wheel of the car
when he was trying to steal his neighbor's
hubcaps.
2012 STELLA AWARDS - #5
• Terrence Dickson, of Bristol , Pennsylvania , who was
leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the
garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic
garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not
get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn't reenter the house because the door connecting the
garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut.
Forced to sit for eight, count 'em, EIGHT days and survive
on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he
sued the homeowner's insurance company claiming
undue mental anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the
insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his
anguish.
2012 STELLA AWARDS - #4
• Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded
$14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on
the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even
though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's
fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he
asked for because the jury believed the beagle
might have been provoked at the time of the butt
bite because Williams had climbed over the fence
into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a
pellet gun.
2012 STELLA AWARDS - #3
• Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania,
because a jury ordered a Philadelphia
restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she
slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her
tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on
the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her
boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an
argument.
2012 STELLA AWARDS - #2
• Kara Walton, of Claymont , Delaware , sued
the owner of a night club in a nearby city
because she fell from the bathroom window
to the floor, knocking out her two front
teeth. Even though Ms.Walton was trying to
sneak through the ladies room window to
avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the
jury said the night club had to pay her
$12,000 ...... oh, yeah, plus dental expenses.
2012 STELLA AWARDS - #1
• Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City , Oklahoma , who
purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first
trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the
freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left
the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make
herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the
freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs.
Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's
manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while
the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her -are you sitting down? --- $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home.
Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this
suit, just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also
buy a motor home.
PROBLEMS CAUSED BY FRIVOLOUS
LAWSUITS
• Drives up the price of malpractice, auto, and other
insurance
• Forces innocent defendants to spend money for
legal defense and cheap settlements
• Drives up the price of products and services
• Rewards undeserving lawyers and plaintiffs
• Consumes court resources and delays processing of
legitimate cases
• Leads to poor patient care (in the case of medical
liability)
LAWSUIT ABUSE
• 73% of voters say lawyers benefit the most from
lawsuits; only 4% say victims do.
Election night poll of 800 voters conducted on
November 4, 2008 by Public Opinion Strategies
• 83% of voters say the number of frivolous lawsuits is a
serious problem.
Election night poll of 800 voters conducted on
November 4, 2008 by Public Opinion Strategies
LAWSUIT ABUSE
• 75% of all small business owners in America are
concerned they might be the target of a
frivolous or unfair lawsuit. Of those who are most
concerned, six in ten say the fear of lawsuits makes them
feel more constrained in making business decisions
generally, and 54 percent say lawsuits or the threat of
lawsuits forced them to make decisions they otherwise
would not have made.
Small Businesses: How the Threat of Lawsuits Impacts
Their Operations
• Small businesses paid $105.4 billion in tort liability costs in
2008.
Tort Liability Costs for Small Business
LAWSUIT ABUSE
• Small businesses are responsible for 64 percent of all
new jobs created in the U.S economy (SBA Office
of Advocacy Frequently Asked Questions).
More jobs, higher wages, and better benefits could
be provided if the average small business earning
$1 million in revenue didn’t have to spend $20,000
each year on an out of control lawsuit system.
Tort Liability Costs for Small Business
• The growth in U.S. tort costs are projected to
increase by three percent in 2009.
2009 Update on U.S. Tort Cost Trends
LAWSUIT ABUSE
• America’s civil justice system is the world’s most
expensive, with a direct cost in 2008 of $254.7 billion,
or 1.79 percent of the U.S. GDP.
2009 Update on U.S. Tort Cost Trends
• Tort costs were $838 per U.S. citizen in 2008,
meaning a family of four paid a “litigation tax” of
$3,352 for the U.S. civil justice system, a cost driven
up due to increased costs from lawsuits and other
liability expenses that force businesses to raise the
price of products and services.
2009 Update on U.S. Tort Cost Trends
LAWSUIT ABUSE
• The cost of the U.S. tort liability system as a
percentage of GDP is more than double the
average cost of any other industrialized nation.
Who Pays for Tort Liability Claims? An Economic
Analysis of the U.S. Tort Liability System