#17545 - Torts Strict Liability Notes - Tort Law

STRICT LIABILITY

General

• When is the defendant liable fro the physical harm he accidentally or inadvertently causes to the plaintiff?

  • Traditional Strict Liability

    • Holds the defendant liable for any harm he causes to the plaintiff’s person or property

  • Allow for affirmative defenses

    • Looking at the plaintiff’s conduct and causation is a common requirement

  • 14^th Century Tort Actions – Civil Liability was strict

    • Could only submit answer to action – only say did it or not, couldn’t say did it negligently

1. & 2. Duty & Breach

If you act and cause harm = you pay

• Bear the cost of the harm that you cause

• Prima Facie Case = you acted + caused my harm

• Today:

  • Wild animals on property = behavior of your animals

    • Also domestic animals with known dangerous tendencies

  • Ultra-hazardous activities

    • Nature of the defendant’s activity is so dangerous and scary, and hard to reduce the degree of it

  • Manufacturers and distributors and sellers of products

• The Thorns Case (Hull v. Orange) – FIRST HALF OF 19^TH CENTURY

  • Facts:

    • Hull (plaintiff) owned a plot of land that was adjacent to land owned by Orange (defendant). Orange’s land contained a thorn hedge. Orange cut the thorns, and some of them inadvertently fell onto Hull’s land. Orange entered Hull’s land for the purpose of removing the thorns. Hull sued Orange for trespass based on the trampling of grass from Orange’s entrance on his property.

  • Holding:

    • Even though there is no legal fault in an act, but causes damage to the property of another, he is liable for the damages caused.

    • Regardless of whether the underlying act is lawful, if damage is caused, the actor is strictly liable for the damage.

      • If the principle thing is unlawful, then the thing which depends upon it is not lawful.

  • Reasoning:

    • Even though Orange lawfully entered Hull’s land for the purpose of removing thorns which unlawfully fell onto the land, he still must pay compensation.

    • Damage is result of his action, because if wind had blown the thorns in that direction, he would not have bothered to pick up.

    • Suffer damages at the hands of someone else, right to be compensated

• Fletcher v. Rylands – SECOND HALF OF THE 19^th CENTURY (#1)

  • Facts:

    • Fletcher (plaintiff) leased several underground coal mines from land adjacent to that owned by Rylands (defendant). Rylands owned a mill, and built a reservoir on his land for the purpose of supplying water to that mill. Rylands employedcompetentengineers and contractors to build the reservoir. In the course of building the reservoir, these employees learned that it was being built on top of abandoned underground coal mines. This fact was unknown by Rylands. After the reservoir was completed, it broke and flooded Fletcher’s coal mines. This caused damage to Fletcher’s property, and Fletcher brought suit against Rylands. Found that the defendants, personally,were free from all blames, but the fact that their agents,the workers,didn’t employ proper care and skill, caused the“mischief”.

  • Holding:

    • A person is liable for damage caused to the real property of another even if his intent and actions are lawful, and the damage is caused inadvertently.

  • Reasoning:

    • Plaintiff has the right to be free from damage caused by “foreign water” (natural water could not have been an issue).

    • Doesn’t matter that there was to intention, because the plaintiff’s rights have been infringed upon.

    • On the ground that the defendant caused damage to the property, which without the defendant’s actions would not have happened, this action is maintainable.

      • Defendant’s innocence is immaterial.

  • Dissent:

    • Here the act was consequential – can’t hold accountable.

    • There was no nuisance

      • To hold as such as above, would make the defendant liable an insurer for his neighbor for acts on his own land, even though he couldn’t’ foresee the trouble. – SHOULD BE NEGLIGENCE

• Fletcher v. Rylands (#2)

  • Holding:

    • A person who lawfully brings something onto his land that, if it escapes, is capable of doing harm, is strictly liable for any harm occurring as a natural consequence of the escape.

  • Reasoning: (Blackburn)

    • Absolute duty to prevent harm is imposed, rather than a duty to merely exercise due care and skill to prevent harm

    • Water was harmless as long as it was confined to his property, but could admittedly cause damage if it escaped onto the property of another.

      • Since he unsuccessfully contained the water, and it escaped and caused damage, he is liable.

      • He also received a private benefit from whatever you brought to the land

    • Continue to use fault based standard for personal property

      • Personal property and collision cases, unlike here, both parties have taken some risk of injury (mutuality of risk)

    • Real property

      • Rylands gets all the private benefit and imposing the unidirectional risk onto Fletcher

• Rylands v. Fletcher (#3)

  • Holding:

    • A person who disrupts the natural state of real property by lawfully bringing something onto his land that, if it escapes, is capable of doing harm, is strictly liable for any harm occurring as a natural consequence of the escape.

  • Reasoning:

    • If the plaintiff’s use of his property was an unnatural use of his property, then he is liable for the damages caused. However, if it is a natural use of his property, then there would be no action for damages.

    • Only important thing to ask is, did his acts cause the damage (and not due care/caution). Sic uti suo ut non laedat alienum – he is bound to use his property to not harm another.

• Scope of Rylands v. Fletcher

  • Sub species of nuisance

    • Tort based on in the interference of one occupier of land with the right in or enjoyment of land by another occupier of land as such

    • Escape from one land to another

    • Has to be in relation to enjoyment of land

3.& 4. Look to Negligence for CAUSATION and DAMAGES

DEFENSES: No once could be liable for:

• Injuries that were “acts of God”

  • Harms brought about by storms, earthquakes, the likes

• It is not my act

• ...