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Torts

Torts. A private or civil wrong or injury where some duty is owe by one party to another.

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Torts

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  1. Torts A private or civil wrong or injury where some duty is owe by one party to another.

  2. Constitutional Tort: Federal statutue providing that every perosn who under the color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any state or territory or jurisdiction, which deprives another of any right, privilege or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws are liable to the injured party (42 U.S.C.A. $ 1983)

  3. Intentional Tort: A tort or wrong that the law has stated is wrong. This is in contract to an ommissive tort.

  4. NEGLIGENCE • The act of omission or commission • Under the reasonably prudent person standard • Failure to do or not to do what a reasonably prudent person would have done in similar circumstances • Based under Tort law

  5. The Test of Negligence • Duty • Standard of Care • Reasonably Prudent Person Standard • Breach of Duty • Proximate Cause • Actual Injury • Comparative Negligence (State of Illinois)

  6. Developing a Standard of Care • 1) Nature of the activity • 2) Type of participants • 3) Environmental conditions

  7. Facility Liability • Duty to: • Discover potential hazards and correct them • Warn of real or potential danger • Provide reasonable security against injury • Maintain safe premises • Refrain from negligent or careless acts • Control third person acts if foreseeable

  8. Defamation • That which tends to injure reputation; to diminish esteem, respect, goodwill, or confidence in which the plaintiff is held, or to excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against the person.

  9. Defamation • Slander - Verbal tort • Accuses a person of a criminal act • Accuses a person of having a loathsome disease • Accuses a female of being unchaste • Accuses a person of misconduct in public office • Injures a person’s profession, business or trade

  10. Defamation • Libel - Written, photos, cartoons, etc. • One-meaning libel that is defamatory(per se) • Two-meaning libel that may or may not be defamatory must be tried for facts. • Defamatory when combined with other facts.

  11. Restatement (Second) of Torts • Four Elements of Defamation: 1) A false statement 2) Publication to a third party 3) Fault or negligence of the publisher 4) Damage There must be intentional communication and not a situation of overhearing something.

  12. Classifications of Libel • Public Officials - High level officials of the state • All-Purpose Public Figures - Base on notoriety • Limited Public Figures - Caught in the vortex of temporary notoriety • Private Citizen - Obvious?

  13. Case • New York Times v. Sullivan (1964): • Elected official claimed that an ad in the New York Times was libelous in depiction of the plaintiff. Plaintiff was not named directly, but implied, and there were false and inaccurate statements in the ad. Supreme Court reversed trial court and stated that public officials cannot win an award unless “actual malice” existed (based on free speech issues).

  14. Case • Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974): • Distinguished between public and private citizens. Private citizens do not have to demonstrate malice, but do have to demonstrate a “damaging falsehood.” • Public/Private is distinguished by a person’s availability to self remedy a rebuttal.

  15. Case • Warford v. Lexington Herald-Leader Co.(1990): • A college assistant football coach brought suit for allegations by the paper of his wrongdoing. Court set a four-part test for limited purpose public figures. 1) Isolate controversy and determine scope of public interest 2) Examine plaintiff’s role in the controversy 3) Determine if defamatory statement is germane to plaintiff’s role in the controversy 4) Analyze the extent of plaintiff’s access to channels of media communication

  16. Defenses • Truth - Burden is on plaintiff to prove falsehood. • Opinion - Again based on the concept of truth, which the plaintiff must provide.

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