Torts I Exam Questions: Duty of Care and Negligence Cases, Exams of Law of Torts

Download Torts I Exam Questions: Duty of Care and Negligence Cases and more Exams Law of Torts in PDF only on Docsity! Q 1-30 /30 Q 31 /20 Q 32 /50 Total Grade: /100 EXAM NO. _________ CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART I Page 1 of 10 INSTRUCTIONS: This exam consists of thirty multiple choice questions and two essay questions. The multiple choice questions are worth thirty points. Of the two essay questions, one is worth twenty points, one is worth fifty points. Thus, the total maximum raw score for the exam is 100 points. This is PART I of the exam. PART I of the exam consists of the thirty multiple choice questions (thirty points) and one twenty-point essay question. You have 90 minutes to complete PART I. For multiple choice questions, simply place a checkmark next to the best answer. Explanations are neither required nor permitted. For essay questions, lines are provided on the exam for your answers. Confine your answers to the provided lines. Do not use an answer book or separate paper for your answers. This is a closed-book exam. You may not bring any materials to the exam. Write your number on each page of the exam. Print or write as legibly as you possibly can. DO NOT ABBREVIATE except for abbreviations used in the questions themselves. Good luck. EXAM NO. _________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART I Page 2 of 10 QUESTION NOS . 1-13: For questions 1-13, specify whether the defendant has a duty to the plaintiff under traditional common law principles. (1) Plaintiff, an invited guest at a party at Defendant’s home, suffers a heart attack at the party. Plaintiff fails to assist Defendant. Duty ________ No Duty _______ (2) Defendant is a motorist who passes by an accident that is blocking the road. Plaintiff is a motorist passing Defendant in the opposite direction and approaching the accident scene. Without a warning from Defendant, Plaintiff will likely crash into the vehicles already involved in the accident. Duty ________ No Duty _______ (3) Defendant routinely allows his child to play baseball in a vacant lot. Unprecedently, the child throws a baseball through Plaintiff’s window. Duty ________ No Duty _______ (4) Plaintiff is a hobo asleep on a railroad track. Defendant is the engineer on a train which runs over Plaintiff and severs Plaintiff’s arm. Defendant does not seek assistance for Plaintiff thereafter. Duty ________ No Duty _______ (5) Same as previous question except it is established that there is no way a reasonable engineer could have stopped the train in time to avoid running over Plaintiff. Duty ________ No Duty _______ (6) Defendant challenges plaintiff to jump from a cliff into a lake. Plaintiff jumps and is drowning. Defendant can swim. Duty ________ No Duty _______ EXAM NO. _________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART I Page 5 of 10 (19) A statute prohibits driving on the shoulder of a road. Defendant drives on the shoulder of the road to avoid hitting a child who has darted out into the road, and the soft shoulder causes Defendant to leave the road and drive into Plaintiff’s house. Negligence Per Se ________ No Negligence Per Se ________ (20) Defendant, driving with a suspended license but otherwise in full compliance with traffic laws, strikes and injures Plaintiff. Negligence Per Se ________ No Negligence Per Se ________ QUESTION NOS. 21-27: For questions 21-27, in a jurisdiction that follows the bystander rule, also known as the Dillon foreseeability test, indicate whether there would be liability for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress in the following situations. As a common fact to all of the following questions, assume that Defendant negligently drives his car off the road. (21) Plaintiff suffers a nervous disorder as the result of watching the car strike a stranger standing two feet from Plaintiff. Liability ________ No Liability ________ (22) Plaintiff suffers a nervous disorder as a result of arriving at the scene where her husband was minutes earlier struck by the car. Liability ________ No Liability ________ (23) Plaintiff suffers a nervous disorder as a result of seeing the car approaching her, and the car actually strikes Plaintiff. Liability ________ No Liability ________ (24) Plaintiff suffers a nervous disorder as a result of arriving at the scene where a stranger was minutes earlier struck by the car. Liability ________ No Liability ________ EXAM NO. _________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART I Page 6 of 10 (25) Plaintiff suffers a nervous disorder as the result of watching the car strike her husband standing two hundred feet from Plaintiff. Liability ________ No Liability ________ (26) Plaintiff suffers a nervous disorder as the result of watching the car strike her husband standing two feet from Plaintiff. Liability ________ No Liability ________ (27) Plaintiff suffers a nervous disorder as a result of seeing the car strike a stranger standing two hundred feet from Plaintiff. Liability ________ No Liability ________ QUESTION NOS. 28-30: For questions 28-30, indicate whether Defendant is vicariously liable for the tortious conduct of X. (28) Defendant employs X to deliver flowers for Defendant’s business, using Defendant’s truck. X drives too fast and injures Plaintiff while making such a delivery. Liability ________ No Liability ________ (29) Same facts as Number 28, except that while making a sequence of deliueries, X stops at a McDonald’s for lunch. X insufficiently engages the parking brake before entering the McDonald’s, and the truck rolls and injures Plaintiff. Liability ________ No Liability ________ (30) X is in the courier business. Defendant’s truck is in disrepair for a week, and Defendant hires X to make Defendant’s deliveries for that week. X charges Defendant a per-delivery charge based upon the mileage driven for each delivery. X drives too fast and injures Plaintiff while making a delivery. Liability ________ No Liability ________ EXAM NO. _________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART I Page 7 of 10 QUESTION NO. 31 Albie Bach is a thirty-two year-old individual injured in an auto accident when he was struck from behind in his car by a car driven by Moe Zart. Zart admittedly was looking at the scenery in the Bay of Toven instead of watching for traffic in front of him at the time of the accident. The date of the accident was March 25, 1998. It seems that Bach suffered a back injury playing football when he was in high school. Since then, he has been unable to engage in any physically-strenuous activities, such as sports or even dancing. This high school injury did not prevent him from walking or gainful employment. After the accident with Zart, Bach’s back condition was worsened considerably. From that point forward, Bach was unable to sit for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time without debilitating pain, and he could no longer walk without a cane. Immediately after the accident with Zart, Bach contacted his insurance company, Nopro Tek. About three months after the accident, Joe Pan, a claims adjuster from Nopro Tek, contacted Bach. Pan asked Bach to show him exactly how the accident happened, even insisting that Bach position his car at the accident scene in the exact same position the car was in when it was struck by Zart’s car. While Bach is sitting in his car in the position requested by Pan, Bach’s car is once again struck from behind, this time by a hit-and-run driver who cannot be found or identified. Following this collision, Bach’s back injury is so severe that he is unable to engage in gainful employment, although he can still walk short distances. About a year later, shortly before trial, Bach is walking around his home when he slips and falls on some grease from some Chi Covsky, the Chinese food he had had delivered the night before. As a result of this fall, Bach is permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Bach brings suit against Zart, who does not contest that his negligence was the cause of the March 25, 1998, accident. You are the judge in a bench trial. For which injuries should Zart be responsible? Be sure to describe the period of time and the extent of the damages for which Zart should be responsible. Explain your answer. ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ EXAM NO. _________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART I Page 10 of 10 __________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART II Page 1 of 9 INSTRUCTIONS: This is PART II of the exam. PART II consists of one essay question worth fifty points. You have 90 minutes to complete Part II. For each essay question, lines are provided on the exam for your answers. Confine your answers to the provided lines. Do not use an answer book or separate paper for your answers. This is a closed-book exam. You may not bring any materials to the exam. Write your number on each page of the exam. Print or write as legibly as you possibly can. DO NOT ABBREVIATE except for abbreviations used in the question itself. Good luck. EXAM NO. ________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART II Page 2 of 9 QUESTION NO. 32: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are hiking on a trail open to the public in a national forest. The quartet comes upon an unmarked trail intersection. Nash votes to go left because he believes the right fork leads to private property. Stills agrees that the right fork will lead to private property, but nevertheless votes to go right because the terrain looks easier. Crosby believes both forks lead to continuing public property, and votes to go right because of the difficult terrain ahead to the left. Young, as an act of contrariness, has no opinion and refuses to vote. Proceeding democratically, the foursome proceeds on the path to the right, which leads the group onto the private property of Etheridge, although there is no indication of entry onto private land on the trail. Soon after entering upon Etheridge’s property, Young is bitten by a poisonous rattle snake. Young is incapacitated and falls unconscious to the ground. Nash decides to stay with Young while Crosby and Stills go for help. Crosby and Stills decide to go further in the same direction in which they were previously proceeding, and soon encounter a sign indicating that they are upon private property and that trespassing is not tolerated. Stills decides to turn back at this point and to seek help in the opposite direction. Before leaving Etheridge’s property, Stills lights a cigarette and, carelessly failing to be sure that the match is out, starts a fire which destroys several acres of timber on Etheridge’s property. The fire is started at 3:00 p.m. Although Stills is at that point only 15 minutes from Young, the fire prevents Stills from returning to Young. Crosby proceeds ahead in the hope of finding assistance for Young. Crosby comes across the home of Etheridge and knocks on the door. When Etheridge responds, Crosby informs Etheridge of Young and Nash and the emergency situation. Etheridge immediately orders Crosby off her property, directing him to the road nearby rather than permitting Crosby to return to the others. At that point, which is also at 3:00 p.m., an easy telephone call from Etheridge to the emergency services could have resulted in Young being rescued and taken to the hospital for a timely antidote by 4:00 p.m. At 2:30 p.m., Nash decides to leave Young and separately explore for assistance. While doing so, Nash, while still on Etheridge’s property, seeks to cross a river on an apparently stable bridge. Actually, as Etheridge had known for some time, the bridge contained hidden defects that caused Nash to fall into the river and drown. While all of this is taking place, Young regains consciousness. This occurs at about 5:00 p.m. At that point, the effect of the snake venom was such that Young had about two hours left to live. However, just at that time, the fire started by Stills has advanced to the position of Young. While an able-bodied person would have easily been able to escape the slow-moving fire, and while Young is small enough to have been carried to safety from the fire, Young is so incapacitated by the snake venom that he is unable to move. Young is consumed by the fire and dies at 5:30 p.m. Etheridge brings actions for trespass against Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and for negligence against Stills. The estate of Nash brings negligence actions against Etheridge, Crosby and Stills. The estate of Young brings negligence actions against Etheridge, Crosby, Stills and Nash. You are the judge in a bench trial on all these actions. How do you rule? Be sure to explain your answers, discussing the various claims and any plausible defenses. EXAM NO. ________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART II Page 5 of 9 __________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ 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________________________________________________________________________________________ EXAM NO. ________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART II Page 6 of 9 __________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ 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________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ EXAM NO. ________ TORTS I FALL SEMESTER EXAMINATION Professor Dallon Friday, December 21, 2001 Professor Melilli PART II Page 7 of 9 __________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________ 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