Torts II Outline
Professor Kearney
Spring 2008
STRICT LIABILITY
I. Strict Liability
A. Background-General Introduction
1. “Strict” does not equal “absolute” because defenses exist against strict liability.
B. Elements of Strict Liability with regards to Products Liability Cases (Pieces of Analysis)
1. Act (a great focus of analysis in these cases)
a. Generally described as conduct so dangerous that the court does not care what the defendant was thinking.
1) There is no intent element to prove by the Plaintiff
2) Conduct is the critical factor, not the actor’s state of mind as in Intentional Tort cases.
b. Depends on whether the Defendant was engaged in an abnormally dangerous activity (A.D.A).
1) The issue in most cases is determining whether the activity was indeed “abnormal”
2) The definition of “activity” may also be brought up; however, many particular activities have already been defined by the courts or by statute. Make sure to identify the activity for analysis.
(a) Examples of activities which are abnormally dangerous: mining, blasting, transporting chemicals
2. Causation
a. Described as that which makes the activity ultrahazardous thereby causing the injury.
b. What is the relationship between the risk of harm from the activity and the resulting injury.
3. Injury
a. Often easily proved and not a great deal of analysis.
4. Liability
a. Rest. 519:
1) One who carries on an abnormally dangerous activity is subject to liability for harm to the person, land or chattels of another resulting from the activity, although he has exercised the utmost care to prevent the harm.
2) This strict liability is limited to the kind of harm, the possibility of which makes the activity abnormally dangerous.
5. Not ABSOLUTE liability–has DEFENSES
a. Example
1) Activity: keeping a dangerous animal in confinement for entertainment purposes.
2) Under causation and defenses, plaintiff’s motives can come up.
6. POLICY:
a. Founded under a policy of law that imposes upon anyone who for his own purposes creates an abnormal risk of harm to his neighbors, the responsibility of relieving against that harm when it does in fact occur. The defendant’s enterprise is required to pay its way by compensating for the harm it causes because of its special, abnormal and dangerous character. The liability is applicable to an activity that is carried on with all reasonable care, and that is of such utility that the risk involved in it cannot be regarded as so great or so unreasonable as to make it negligence merely to carry it on.
C. Liability for Animals
1. Trespassing Animals: The owner is strictly liable for the damage done by the trespass of his animals (other than household pets) as long as it was reasonably foreseeable.
2. Personal Injuries
a. Wild (Dangerous) Animals—Strict Liability
1) The owner is strictly liable for injuries caused by wild animals (i.e. lions, bears, animals that cannot be tamed), as long as the person injured did nothing, voluntarily or consciously, to bring about the injury
b. Domestic (nondangerous) Animals—Knowled
l tort principle).
D. Ultrahazardous or Abnormally Dangerous Activities
1. Things that are abnormally dangerous activities
a. The person who for his own purposes brings on his lands and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and if he does not do so, is strictly liable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape (Rylands).
b. Plaintiff’s mine is flooded by the water from his neighbor’s reservoir (Rylands).
c. The plaintiff can excuse himself by showing that the escape was owing to the plaintiff’s default; or perhaps the escape was the consequence of vis major, or the act of God (Rylands).
Someone who brings something on his own property which is not naturally there, harmless to others so long as it is confined to his own property, but which he knows to be mischievous if it gets on his neighbor’s, should be obliged to make good the damage which ensues if he does not succeed in confining it to his own property. But for his act in bringing it there no mischief could have accrued, and it seems but just that he should at his peril keep it there, so that no mischief may accrue, or answer for the natural and anticipated consequences (Rylands)
