Description
A law school casebook that maps the progression of the law of torts through the language and example of public judicial decisions in a range of cases.
A tort is a wrong that a court is prepared to recognize, usually in the form of ordering the transfer of money (“damages”) from the wrongdoer to the wronged. The tort system offers recourse for people aggrieved and harmed by the actions of others. By filing a lawsuit, private citizens can demand the attention of alleged wrongdoers to account for what they’ve done—and of a judge and jury to weigh the claims and set terms of compensation. This book, which can be used as a primary text for a first-year law school torts course, maps the progression of the law of torts through the language and example of public judicial decisions in a range of cases. Taken together, these cases show differing approaches to the problems of defining legal harm and applying those definitions to a messy world.
The cases range from alleged assault and battery by “The Schoolboy Kicker” (1891) to the liability of General Motors for “The Crumpling Toe Plate” (1993). Each case is an artifact of its time; students can compare the judges’ societal perceptions and moral compasses to those of the current era.
This book is part of the Open Casebook series from Harvard Law School Library and MIT Press.
Table of Contents
1 Acknowledgments 1
2 Introduction 3
3 Assault and Battery I 7
4 Assault and Battery II: Intent and Autonomy 23
5 False Imprisonment: Taking Care of Others 49
6 Defenses: Overriding the Choices of Others 73
7 Trespass to Chattels: The Limits of Self-Help 97
8 Negligence: The Standard of Reasonable Care 123
9 Negligence: Adjusting the Standard? 149
10 Res Ipsa Loquitur 171
11 Negligence Per Se 193
12 Duty I: Introduction; Action vs. Inaction 213
13 Duty II: Duty to Control Others 239
14 Duty III: Governmental Liability 271
15 Duty IV: Emotional and Economic Harm 299
16 Causation 325
17 Proximate Cause 353
18 Vicarious Liability 385
19 Strict Liability 411
20 Defenses I: Contributory and Comparative Faulty 437
21 Defenses II: Assumption of Risk 463
22 Products Liability I: Manufacturing Defects 485
23 Products Liability II: Design Defect and Warning 515
24 Damages 545
Index of Cases 573
