Liability for Economic Loss Arises in Negligence Cases Using Case Law
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This report discusses the emergence of liability in cases of negligence, damages that can be claimed, and liability of employers using case law examples. It covers product liability, damages that can be claimed in case of negligence, and liability of employers.
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LIABILITY FOR ECONOMIC LOSS ARISES IN NEGLIGENCE CASES USING CASE LAW TO ILLUSTRATE YOUR ANSWER
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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3 MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3 1. Emergence of liability in case of negligence through the illustration of case law..................3 2. Damages that can be claimed in case of negligence of Peter..................................................4 3. Liability of whom for Peter’s negligence, if he was working for Kitchen – Quick Kitchen fitters............................................................................................................................................5 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5 REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION Tort can be defined as a civil wrong which results in claim from a plaintiff due to suffering from a harm or loss which in return creates liability in legal sense for another person against whom the claim has been made by the plaintiff for their tortious act. It includes financial losses, emotional distress, negligence, invasion of privacy and injuries along with many other things. The person committing the tortious act is known as tortfeasor and the plaintiff in this regard is known as injured party. In this report, the main discussion will revolve around the emergence of liability in the cases of negligence and damages that an injured party can claim due to the commitment of negligence along with the person on whom liability will be imposed in such negligence case. MAIN BODY 1. Emergence of liability in case of negligence through the illustration of case law In case of negligence, the tort involve is of an unintentional nature, where a lack of action results in the personal damage and injury. Here the tortfeasor can claim in the law of court that he has acted unreasonably by disregarding the well – being and safety of the other party. Therefore, the tortfeasor is liable towards the injured party under the law of tort. The certain liability discussed under the tort law pertaining to negligence are as follows: Productliability:Liabilityariseofanyorallthoseinvolvedinthechainof manufacturing of certain product which leads to the damages caused to the party obtaining it1. Claim can be made in respect of product liabilitywhen there is a negligence, strict liability as defined under the tort law and also when there is a breach of warranty. The events in which product liability arises are as follows: When defendant undertake to sale product or service to the plaintiff and the latter has made payment in this regards. The defendant should be a commercial seller of the product. The plaintiff should suffered from an economic loss. The item should be defective at the time it was sold. The proximate and actual cause of the economic loss should be one resulting from that defect which was present at the time of sale. The liability arises when the loss was resulting from the product and it could never be a pure economic on nature but only the monetary losses arises due to the sale of the product. Defects due to which liability arises are as follows: Design defects: Such type of defects are considered to be an inherent and it was existed before the product was actually manufactured2. Due to the flaw of the design, it could be unreasonably harmful or dangerous to use despite of the fact that it is serving the purpose well. 1Abbasi, M. and Parsa, E., 2019 2Basten, J., 2018
Manufacturing defects: Such defects occurs during the process of production where not all but few items out of the many products produced are defective in this case. Marketing defects: Such type of defects arises when the marketing function couldn’t release proper instructions and thus fails to warn consumers of the hidden dangers associated with the product. Illustration of Tort law for negligence In the case ofJunior Books Ltd v Veitchi Co Ltd [1983]where the defendant was specialist and contractor for laying a floor in a factory which was used by the plaintiff. The latter claims that the defendant was specialist and due to his negligence whatever the damages has been caused with the cracking of the floor, the defendant is liable for it. Therefore, plaintiff has claimed the cost associated with the laying of floor, the cost incurred to the factory towards replacing the floor and also the loss of profit. There was no claim personal injury due to the cracked floor. As a result, the defendant appealed for such claims made by the plaintiff3. Held, the court set aside the appeal of the defendant on the ground of extended duty to not avoid only the foreseeable harm to the property or person but also due to the work that had been defected there is a duty to avoid pure economic loss arises. Hence, plaintiff has the right to recover the cost associated with the repair of the floor. 2. Damages that can be claimed in case of negligence of Peter In the context of law, damages are defined as an award generally in terms of money that is required to be paid to the person as a compensation for the injury or loss caused to the plaintiff. The damages are categorized into two categories that is, punitive and compensatory damages. The further classification of compensatory damages is special and general damages. Special damages involves loss of economic nature that is, loss of earnings, damages to property and medical expenses while general damages involves non – economic losses such as emotional distress and pain and sufferings4. Punitive damages are those which results in deterring the defendant from pursuing a particular course of action due to which damage has been caused to the plaintiff. So, on the basis of above discussion the damages that can be claimed by Builder Ben due to the negligence of Peter are as follows: The present case involves two types of damages that arises in the contract between Peter and Builder that is, the damage to property as kitchen units wooden floors in the hall and living room gets damaged due to the water flooded in these with the negligence of Peter and the second damage involves the loss of earnings as Builder Ben has received lower monetary gain by selling the house to other party as Mark has denied to buy that house due the non – completion of work on time. As per the law of tort, both cost of repairing incurred by Builder Ben and loss of earnings in respect of lower value received from the sale of house can be claimed from Peter which has been caused due to his negligence. 3Stoyanova, V., 2020 4Pal, M., 2019
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3. Liability of whom for Peter’s negligence, if he was working for Kitchen – Quick Kitchen fitters If Peter was working for Kitchen-quick kitchen fitters, then the latter was acting as an employer and Peter was then considered to be an employee of the latter. Under tort law, an employer is held liable for the act of negligence of an employee, when the employer was found to be negligent in providing with the ability to perform a particular act to his employee5. Some of the cases of employer’s liability are negligent hiring and retention & negligent training and supervision. However, if it found that the employee is negligent on his personal part like if he has behaved in a reckless manner, then he would be liable for the loss and damages personally. Illustration of case law In case ofPonticas v. K.M.S. Investments, the court held employer liable on the ground of negligent employment. Thus, it is the direct liability imposed by court on the employer after holding that the loss or damages caused to the plaintiff was due to the failure of employer in taking reasonable precautions while hiring and retaining employees in the business in an attempt to protect their customers from the misconduct of its employees. CONCLUSION From the above report it has been concluded that tort law are some of the decision that has been made by the court previously in the similar circumstances as is in the present. And on the basis of such cases, the judgment for the present cases are made. In this report various case laws associated with the negligence has been discussed. 5Goudkamp, J., 2017
REFERENCES Abbasi, M. and Parsa, E., 2019. Types of compensation claims in relation to pre-natal diagnosis negligenceintheUKlegalsystem.JournalofAdvancedPharmacyEducation& Research| Apr-Jun,9(S2), p.79. Basten, J., 2018. Personal injury: contributory negligence.JUDICIAL REVIEW,13(4), pp.417- 430. Stoyanova, V., 2020. Common law tort of negligence as a tool for deconstructing positive obligations under the European convention on human rights.The International Journal of Human Rights,24(5), pp.632-655. Pal, M., 2019.Economic Analysis of Tort Law: The Negligence Determination. Taylor & Francis. Goudkamp,J.,2017.BreachofDuty:ADisappearingElementoftheActionin Negligence?.The Cambridge Law Journal,76(3), pp.480-483.