Summer 2001 Torts II Exam Sample: Transit & Wilson's Negligence & Product Liability Claims, Exams of Law of Torts

Download Summer 2001 Torts II Exam Sample: Transit & Wilson's Negligence & Product Liability Claims and more Exams Law of Torts in PDF only on Docsity! 1. I would not expect a claim against the murderers to be of any value as a civil action. Their fault, however, may figure into the recovery against LSTA, as described below. The facts for this question were based upon Roseboro v. New York City Transit Authority, 2001 WL 869643, 2001 N.Y. Slip Op. 06580 (Aug. 2, 2001), in which the widow's judgment against the Transit Authority ($788,822) was ordered to be reduced by the percentage of fault attributable to the crack addicts who murdered him. TORTS II PROFESSOR DEWOLF SUMMER 2001 August 10, 2001 FINAL EXAM SAMPLE ANSWER QUESTION 1 I would explore a claim on Lydia Roseboro ("LR")'s behalf against the Linden State Transit Authority ("LSTA") for failing to protect AR Roseboro ("AR") from the assault.1 (a) Does the sovereign immmunity statute permit such claims? (b) Did LSTA owe AR a duty of care? (c) Will comparative fault limit the claim? (d) Will the statute of limitations bar the claim? (e) What damages are recoverable under the statute? A. Sovereign Immunity The State of Linden can only be sued pursuant to permission granted in the statute waiving sovereign immunity. Fortunately, in the state of Linden, the statute waiving sovereign immunity is quite broad. It permits suits "in accordance with the same rules of law as applied to actions in the trial courts against individuals or corporations." (§ 8) The only significant limitation is that there is no liability for the exercise of a discretionary function (§ 12). It is unlikely that LSTA would be able to claim that failing to summon help for AR was in the exercise of a discretionary function, although we would need to be careful in framing the claim in such a way that it did not involve criticizing LSTA for policymaking judgment. Instead, some operational error would be the foundation -- in particular, Hutchinson's lack of attention paid to the events. There may also be some negligence in the operation of the train, but it doesn't appear that the train operator was at fault in failing to stop the train on time. Other issues, such as the level of security provided at the station, would be matters of policymaking and therefore shielded by sovereign immunity. We would have to show that Hutchinson failed to follow existing policy, not that the LSTA's policy was bad. B. Duty of Care? LSTA is not liable if the court finds that they did not owe AR a duty of care. Another way of saying this is that a defendant cannot be found negligent simply for failing to rescue the plaintiff; before a duty of care is imposed to rescue the plaintiff from a pre-existing risk, the court must determine whether (1) a "special relationship" existed between the plaintiff and the defendant; and/or (2) the plaintiff justifiably relied upon the defendant for protection. Here there is a good argument DeWolf, Torts I, Summer 2001, Sample Answer Page 2 on both counts. AR could claim that his "regular" presence in the train station resulted in a special relationship, and the knowledge of harm being done to passengers meant that the defendant had a duty of care. In addition, the knowledge of the regular presence of crack addicts might create a special relationship that required some level of warning or rescue by LSTA. In a related way, LSTA's act of holding open a train station probably induced passengers to rely upon the defendant to exercise reasonable care for their safety. An alternative approach to this case would be to argue that this is a premises liability case and that AR was a business invitee. An owner of premises must exercise reasonable care toward business or public invitees. However, this claim might be blunted by arguing that in fact it wasn't a condition of the premises that injured AR, but rather the assailants just happened to use the railway station as a means of perpetrating crime. Nonetheless, the fact that AR had in effect paid (by way of train fare) for his presence on the train platform adds to the notion that LSTA owed him a duty of reasonable care. As a fallback, we might also argue that operating the train actually caused AR's injury, thus converting this from a case involving the rescue of the plaintiff to one involving the infliction of the plaintiff's injury, thus giving rise to a duty to use reasonable care to avoid such injuries. C. Comparative Fault I don't see any basis for holding AR in any way contributorily negligent, or to say that he assumed a risk. (If the defendant were to argue that conditions were so dangerous that a reasonable person would have avoided them, it would be a damaging admission of their own abdication of responsibility.) Even if AR were assigned some share of fault, it would only reduce the recovery, not bar it, since Linden uses a pure comparative negligence rule. On the other hand, the Linden statutes provide for a reduction of the defendant's financial responsibility whenever the defendant is found to be 50% or less responsible for the plaintiff's injury (§ 1601). In such cases the defendant is only liable for a proportionate share of the non-economic damages assessed. I don't know whether the fault of the murderers will be included in the assessment. It could be excluded as an intentional harm, but if the court ruled that the statute required including them, then we would be limited in collecting only the proportion of fault assigned to LSTA for non- economic harm. Since the murderers are overwhelmingly to blame, the percentage of fault assigned to LSTA might be very small. Nonetheless, it appears from the statute that LR would still be entitled to a full recovery of economic damages, even if LSTA were only found partially at fault. D. Statute of Limitations Under the sovereign immunity statute, there are two requirements for filing the claim. First, notice of the claim must be filed within 90 days of the incident (§ 10(2)), and the claim itself must be filed within two years of the death of the decedent (§10(2)). I hope someone in our office has already filed such a claim, since it has been more than two years since AR's death. Under (§10(6)) there is a provision for relief from failure to file notice of the claim, or the claim itself, within the statutory limits, provided that the claim would not be barred if brought against a private citizen. It appears the court can exercise its discretion in permitting such a claim if the interests of the state haven't been prejudiced. However, if we haven't filed the claim, and if a claim against a private citizen would be barred (or if the judge decides not to take pity on us), then we're out of luck. DeWolf, Torts I, Summer 2001, Sample Answer Page 5 to it, they could assign F a share of fault in the injury that K suffered. That would further reduce W's share of fault. Nonetheless, if W were found liable, they would be responsible for the full extent of K's economic harm; they would have a claim for contribution from F, but that might turn out to be uncollectible. D. Bystander Claims / Loss of Consortium It is likely that Jimmy witnessed the accident. Although he was not physically hurt, he might qualify for a recovery under a "zone of danger" theory, or even under an "impact" rule, if he was, for example, singed by the lighting of the fire. He, too, would be subject to a reduction for his own contributory negligence, but I wouldn't expect his recovery to be large because it doesn't appear he was seriously hurt. F would also make a claim, perhaps on two grounds. First, if F arrived at the scene of the accident shortly after K was burned, he too could claim recovery as a bystander. Most jurisdictions base a bystander's right to recover on three factors: (1) he was at the accident scene, or arrived shortly thereafter; (2) he suffered a direct emotional shock; and (3) he is closely related to the victim. F would probably qualify for all three, although again he may be at fault for failing to exercise reasonable care in securing the gasoline to prevent accidental injury. His fault would reduce his own recovery, and the claim against him for contribution would serve to offset any claim on his own behalf. Checklist QUESTION 1 G Overview G Claim v. State Transit Authority G (Claim v. crack addicts is worthless) G G Sovereign immunity G Statute uses broad form of waiver G discretionary function exemption G Hutchinson's snooze not a discretionary f G Was train operation negligent? G G Did LSTA owe a duty to protect? G Special relationship G Justifiable reliance G Premises Liability case? G Invitees are owed reasonable care G Operation of train caused injury G Comparative fault G No contributory negligence/AOR G Pure comp. neg. anyway G G G Would assailants' share count? G If so, joint liab. for economic dam.'s only G Non-economic limited to %age if state < 50% G Statute of Limitations G Has it already been filed? G 90-day notice requirement G Two year outside limitation G Saving feature (§ 10(6)) G What limit for other defendants? G Separate two-year limit for WD claims G G Wrongful death statute G Widow certainly qualifies G What are "pecuniary injuries"? G Certainly economic G Maybe some form of non-economic damages G G G QUESTION 2 G Overview G Claim v. Wilson's G Product liability claim G Was the pump unit defective? G No manufacturing defect G Arguably a design defect G Plaintiff would probably have expert G G What is the standard? G Consumer expectations test G CE seems to be met G Risk/Utility test may be better for π G Is locking mechanism "worth it"? G Hindsight not significant; risk was known G Is industry custom admissible? G Would "childproof" feature prevent access? G G Warning claim G Was Walter unaware of danger? G Would better warning have avoided injury? G G G G Walter's contributory negligence G Assumption of risk? G Probably just contributory negligence G Pure comparative fault; no bar G G Parental liability? G Is it a bad parenting claim? G Is there "bad farming"/gasoline claim? G Would "bad parenting" still be a %age? G No statute of limitations problem G Statute of repose? G G Joint & Several liability G If W's fault < 50%, non-econ. %age only G Joint liability for economic G Contribution claim - worthwhile? G G Would parent have consortium claim? G Bystander claim for father / mother / Jimmy G G Exam # ____________________