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Legal Environment
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Quotes of the Day
“If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for
thy dowry; be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shall not escape calumny.”
Hamlet, in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act III, scene 1
“It is perfectly monstrous the way people go
about nowadays saying things behind one’s
back that are absolutely true.”
Lord Henry, in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
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Legal Environment
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Tort Means “Wrong”
A tort is a violation of a duty imposed by civil law.
 Defamation -- making a false statement
about someone - written or verbal
 Negligence -- performing wrong surgery
 Interference with contract -- stealing a
client away from a competitor
 Fraud -- offering to sell something that
doesn’t exist
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Tort vs. Criminal or Contract Law
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
Criminal Law -- behavior classified as dangerous
to society; prosecuted by the government, whether
victim wants to prosecute or not; money award
goes to the government

Contract Law -- based on breach of an agreement
between the two parties; victim prosecutes and
receives compensation or restitution.

Tort Law -- based on an obligation imposed by the
law with no agreement needed between parties;
victim prosecutes and receives compensation or
restitution.
Legal Environment
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Categories of Tort Law
 Intentional Torts
• Does not necessarily require an intention to harm
the victim, only an intention to perform the act
which caused the injury. (Intentionally throwing
an object, but not meaning to hit anyone is a tort if
it causes injury to someone.)
• Includes business torts, a category of torts
perpetuated almost exclusively by business
entities.
 Negligence and Strict Liability
• Tort injuries caused by neglect.
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Intentional Tort - Defamation
 Defamation is irresponsible speech to
harm another’s reputation.
• Written defamation is libel.
• Verbal defamation is slander.
 There are four facts to prove to win a
defamation suit:
• The defamatory statement was actually made.
• The statement is false.
• The statement was communicated to someone
other than the plaintiff.
• In slander cases, the plaintiff must show some
injury that resulted from the defamation.
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Defamation (cont’d)
 Opinion -- to be defamation, the statement
must be provable and not simply
someone’s opinion.
• Vague terms in the statement usually indicate it is an
opinion, not a provable fact.
• Extreme exaggerations are usually not taken as fact.
 Public Personalities
• Includes: public officials (police and politicians) and
public figures (movie stars and other celebrities)
• Public personalities have a harder time winning a
defamation case because they have to prove that the
defendant acted with actual malice.
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Defamation (cont’d)
 Privilege
• Defendants receive extra protection in special cases.
• In courtrooms and legislatures, speakers have
absolute privilege. They may speak freely, as long
as it is true.
• When information is legitimately needed, the speaker
giving it has qualified privilege. This may happen
when someone reports a suspected criminal act.
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Legal Environment
Intentional Tort - False
Imprisonment
False imprisonment is the restraint of someone
against their will and without reasonable cause.
 An employer who doesn’t let a sick employee go
home might be guilty of false imprisonment.
 If the police detain a person with no reason to
suspect him of any crime, it could be false
imprisonment.
 In general, a store may detain a person
suspected of shoplifting if there is a reasonable
basis for the charge and the detention is done
reasonably (in private and for a reasonable time).
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Intentional Tort --
Intentional Infliction of
Emotional Distress
 Historically, no recovery was allowed if the
injury was only emotional instead of
physical.
 Today, most courts allow a plaintiff to
recover from a defendant who intentionally
causes emotional injury.
• Behavior causing injury must be extreme and
outrageous.
• Must have caused serious emotional harm.
 Some courts allow recovery for emotional
injury caused by negligent behavior.
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Intentional Tort --
Battery and Assault
 Battery is a touching of another person in a
way that is unwanted or offensive.
• The touch does not have to hurt the victim -sexual touching that is offensive, but not painful,
is battery.
• An intentional action that does hurt someone may
be battery even if the injury is unintentional.
 Assault is an action that causes the victim to
fear an imminent battery.
• Assault can occur without the battery ever
happening.
• Pulling a gun on someone -- even if it is unloaded
-- is usually considered assault.
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Compensatory Damages
 A jury may award compensatory damages --
payment for injury --to a plaintiff who prevails in a
civil suit.
 The Single Recovery Principle mandates that the
court must decide all damages -- past, present
and future -- at one time and settle the matter
completely.
 Damages may include money for three purposes:
• to restore any loss (such as medical expenses)
caused by the illegal action
• to restore lost wages if the injury kept the defendant
from working
• to compensate for pain and suffering
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Punitive Damages

While the purpose of compensatory damages is
to help the victim recover what was lost, punitive
damages are intended to punish the guilty party.
• Intended for conduct that is outrageous and extreme
• Designed to “make an example” out of the defendant
• Should deter others from doing same conduct and
prevent this defendant from repeating actions

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Sometimes punitive damage awards are huge,
but in most cases they are close to or less than
the amount of compensatory damages awarded.
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Business Torts
Intentional torts that occur almost exclusively
in a business setting are called business torts.

Interference with business relations
• Interference with a contract
• Interference with a prospective advantage

The rights to privacy and publicity
•
•
•
•
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Intrusion
Disclosure of embarrassing private facts
False light
Commercial exploitation
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Interference with Business Relations

Interference with a contract exists if the
plaintiff can prove these elements:
• There was a contract between the plaintiff and a
third party and the defendant knew of the contract.
• The defendant induced the third party to breach the
contract or make performance impossible.
• There was injury to the plaintiff.

The defendant can justify the interference if
he can prove one or more of these elements:
• He was protecting an existing economic interest.
• He was protecting a public interest.
• The existing contract could be terminated at will by
either party.
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Interference with Business Relations

Interference with prospective advantage exists:
• when there is a relationship which gives the plaintiff
a reasonable expectation of economic advantage,
even though no contract exists
• when the defendant maliciously interferes and
prevents the relationship from developing

The defendant can justify the interference if
he can prove one or more of these elements:
• He was protecting an existing economic interest
• He was protecting a public interest
• He was simply competing for the same business
in an allowable business situation
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Legal Environment
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Privacy and Publicity
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
Intrusion (prying into someone’s private life) is a
tort if a reasonable person would find it offensive.
• Examples: wiretapping, stalking, peeping
• Would this include buying your personal
information from your credit card company?

Disclosure of Embarrassing Private Facts is
when something extremely embarrassing is
made public with no need for the public to know.

False Light is when something false and
offensive is told about someone.

Commercial Exploitation is when a person’s
image or voice is used for commercial purposes
without that person’s permission.
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Negligence --
“The Unintentional Tort”
To win a negligence case, the plaintiff must
prove that the defendant failed in five areas:
 Duty of due care -- there must be a duty
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owed to the plaintiff.
Breach -- duty must be breached.
Factual cause -- the injury must have been
caused by the defendant’s actions.
Foreseeable harm -- it must have been
foreseeable that the action would cause
this kind of harm.
Injury -- the plaintiff must have been hurt.
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Duty of Due Care

If a defendant could have foreseen injury to a
particular person, she has a duty to him.
• In some states, a social host serving alcohol to an
adult may be found liable for harm done by the
person drinking the alcohol.
• Many states have a “dram act,” making liquor
stores, bars and restaurants liable for serving
drinks to intoxicated customers who later cause
harm.
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Legal Environment
Breach of Duty
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
A defendant breaches his duty of due care by
failing to behave the way a reasonable person
would under similar circumstances.

Companies and Employees -- courts have
found companies liable for hiring and retaining
employees known to be violent, when those
employees later injured co-workers.

Negligence per se -- in special cases,
legislatures set a minimum standard for
certain groups of people (esp. children).
When a violation of that statute hurts a
member of that group, the duty is breached.
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Factual Cause & Foreseeable Harm
 Factual Cause -- if the defendant’s breach
ultimately led to the injury, he is liable.
• Does not have to be the immediate cause of
injury, but must be the first in the direct line.
 Foreseeable Harm -- to be liable, this type of
harm must have been foreseeable.
• The defendant does not have to know exactly
what would happen -- just the type of event.
 Res Ipsa Loquitur -- in a few cases, the
defendant must prove he was NOT negligent or
the facts imply that his negligence caused the
injury.
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Legal Environment
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DO NOT CLICK! Let slide “build” on its
own.
Ex: Factual Cause & Foreseeable Harm
Mechanic fails
to fix customer’s
brakes, which
causes...
Car
accident,
car hitting
bicyclist
Car
accident,
car hitting
bicyclist
Noise from
accident startles
someone who falls
out a window
Car accident,
car
does not hit
bicyclist
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Bicyclist hits
pothole and
crashes
Mechanic is
liable to
cyclist
Mechanic is
NOT liable
for falling
person
Mechanic is
NOT liable
to cyclist
Legal Environment
Factual
cause and
foreseeable
type of injury
Factual
cause, but
no
foreseeable
type of injury
No
factual
cause
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Injury & Damages
 Injury -- plaintiff must show genuine injury
• Future injury may be compensated, but must
be determined at the time of trial.
 Damages -- are usually compensatory,
designed to restore what was lost. In
unusual cases, they may be punitive.
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Legal Environment
Negligence
 Contributory Negligence
• In a few states, if the plaintiff is AT ALL
negligent, he cannot recover damages from
the defendant.
 Comparative Negligence
• In most states, if the plaintiff is negligent, a
percentage of negligence is applied to both
the defendant and the plaintiff.
• The plaintiff can recover from the defendant to
the percentage that the defendant is negligent.
• In some cases, a plaintiff found to be more
than 50% negligent cannot recover at all.
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Strict Liability
Some activities are so dangerous that the law imposes
a high burden on them. This is called strict liability.
 Defective Products-- may incur strict liability.
 Ultrahazardous Activities -- defendants are
virtually always held liable for harm.
• What is ultrahazardous? Includes using harmful
chemicals, explosives and keeping wild animals.
• Plaintiff does not have to prove breach of duty or
foreseeable harm.
• Comparative negligence does not apply -defendant engaging in ultrahazardous activity is
wholly liable.
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“A wide variety of intended acts can
have unintended consequences.
With intentional torts, the defendant
may not have intended to harm the
plaintiff, but her deliberate actions
have resulted in the alleged injury.
Anticipating the harm that can
result enables us to consider
carefully the actions themselves.”
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Legal Environment
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