Liability

11 Key excerpts on "Liability"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Risk and Insurance in Construction

  • Nael G. Bunni, Lydia B. Bunni(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Liability. The legal concept of being subject to the power of another, to a rule of law requiring something to be done or not done. Thus a person who contracts to sell goods is liable to deliver them and the buyer is liable to pay the price. Each is required by law to do something, and can be compelled by legal process at other’s instance to do it; the other is empowered to exact the performance or payment. It is sometimes called subjection. The correlative concept is power.

  A person is said to be under a Liability when he is, or at least may be, legally obliged to do so or suffer something. Thus, one may be said to be liable to perform, to pay, to be sued, to be imprisoned, or otherwise to be subject to some legal duty or legal consequence. In general, Liability attaches only to persons who are legally responsible; an insane person does not generally incur any Liability.

  Liability may arise either from voluntary act or by force of some rule of law. Thus, a person who enters into a contract thereby becomes liable to perform what he has undertaken, or to pay for the counterpart performance, or otherwise to implement his part of the contract. If he acts in breach of contract, he becomes liable by law to pay damages in compensation for the breach. Similarly, if a man acts in breach of any of the general duties made incumbent on him by statute or common law, such as to refrain from injuring his neighbour, or to maintain his tenant’s house in reasonable repair, or to exercise diligence in administering property of which he is trustee, he incurs legal Liability to make good his omission or default.

  Liability is commonly distinguished according to its legal grounds into civil Liability, whereby one is subject to the requirement to pay or perform something by virtue of rules of civil law, and criminal Liability, whereby one is subject to being fined, imprisoned, or otherwise treated by virtue of rules of criminal law. Civil Liability may arise from many grounds, from the natural relations of the family, from undertaking or contract, the commission of a harm, from trust, statute, or decree of court. In respect of Liability arising from harm done, it arises from intentional harm, harm brought about in breach of duty, and in some cases there is strict Liability if harm befalls despite care taken. Criminal Liability arises from the admitted or proved commission of some kind of conduct declared by the rules of criminal law to be a crime inferring punishment. At common law criminal Liability normally also requires that the conduct has been done intentionally or recklessly but not merely negligently or accidentally, and sometimes proof of a particular intent is a necessary ingredient of a crime, but many cases under statute have been held to impose strict or absolute Liability, i.e. Liability irrespective of the actor’s state of mind …

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  AS Law

  • Mary Charman, Bobby Vanstone, Liz Sherratt(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Willan

    (Publisher)

  Part 4 The Concept of Liability

  So far this book has investigated the way in which the English legal system operates, including the way in which the law is formed, the courts and the people who work in them, the role played by the police, etc. The next part of the book provides an introduction to aspects of three areas of substantive law (specific areas of practical law which create rights and obligations):

  • criminal law
  • the law of tort and
  • contract law

  It then considers the sanctions and remedies which may flow from these.

  The material studied in this part of the book will be useful not only for the purposes of the second ‘half’ of AS law for AQA students, but also in providing you with illustrations and examples to support your previous studies, as well as introducing you to particular rules of law.

  Central to this part of the book is the concept of Liability. The term ‘Liability’ means responsibility for a person's actions towards others in society, whether in civil or criminal law. A wrongful act that breaches the criminal law creates a criminal Liability and an offender may then be found guilty. A wrongful act that breaches the law of tort or contract creates a civil Liability and the person carrying out that act may be found liable to compensate in some way the person to whom the harm was caused. The distinction between civil and criminal is discussed in the following chapters, although some differences have already arisen in Chapter 7 (the court system). In general the criminal law is concerned with upholding a standard of behaviour by punishing those who offend, whilst the civil law is concerned with compensating the victim.

  This part of the book is only an introduction to these areas of substantive law. For students continuing to A2 level, the topics are developed further in the relevant modules of the A2 specification. AQA candidates should be able to explain the rules of law covered here, and apply them to a factual problem situation. The topics will then be developed further at A2. OCR candidates continuing to A2 will choose to study, in greater depth, only one

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Law for Project Managers

  • David Wright(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Part V Liability law The law of contract is about the responsibility of the parties to a contract towards each other to carry out their obligations correctly. But the company is not just liable when it has a contract. It is also liable to others if it wrongfully causes loss, damage or injury.

  This part is concerned with explaining how the company may be liable to the rest of society, or at least to those parts of the rest of society that are in the line of fire, if the company makes a bad mistake.

  Passage contains an image

  12	Negligence

  If the company is going to be liable to others it will usually be in one of two ways. The first is for breach of contract. The second is in tort, usually for causing accidental loss or damage and usually in negligence. This chapter sets out the principles of negligence law and Liability.

  The law of tort

  A tort is a wrong (remember your French: ‘J’ai tort’ means ‘I am wrong’). It means causing damage or injury to someone else without any legal excuse and in circumstances where it is proper that the injured party should get some compensation for his loss. For instance, defamation (libel and slander) is a tort. So is trespass to land, causing damage to someone’s property, which is also usually a crime as well. There are several others, deceit (fraud), assault, conspiracy, nuisance and so on. By far the most common tort, and the most important in commercial terms, is negligence.

  Why is negligence so important commercially

  Claims in tort account for 85 per cent of all civil litigation in the UK. All but a few of these claims are for damages for negligence, and the vast majority are against companies. More and more negligence is used as the basis for compensation claims against companies.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Educator's Guide to Texas School Law

  Tenth Edition

  • Jim Walsh, Sarah Orman(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • University of Texas Press

    (Publisher)

  TEN Liability

  “CAN I BE SUED?” This is the question educators ask lawyers more than any other. The answer is always, “Yes.” In America, anyone can sue anyone over anything at any time. The more relevant question is: “Can I be held liable?” The answer to that question turns on a host of factors. Are we talking about personal injury or constitutional claim? State or federal court? Liability of the school district or the individual? In this chapter, we will examine how these factors come into play in a variety of situations.

  IDENTIFYING AREAS OF LEGAL Liability

  Legal Liability can be separated into two distinct categories. The first, criminal law, involves crimes against the state. In this chapter, we are more concerned with the second category of legal Liability: claims arising under civil law. Most civil cases involve a lawsuit brought by one person against another, usually seeking monetary damages. We already have looked briefly at contract violations related to employment. The focus of concern in this chapter is the law of torts, that is, civil wrongs against another that cause the injured party to go to court seeking compensation from the wrongdoer for damages. There are many kinds of torts, among them defamation, negligence, assault, and invasion of privacy. Negligence, which involves the failure to use reasonable care to avoid causing harm to someone, is the most commonly alleged tort claim. We classify all these as state torts.

  Claims made under federal law usually involve the infringement of a person’s recognized constitutional or federal statutory rights. Each will be discussed in turn. STATE TORTS School District Immunity

  The starting point in analyzing claims asserting the Liability of a school district under state law is the general legal principle of governmental immunity. Immunity for school districts comes in two types: (1) immunity from Liability, which means that the plaintiff cannot recover damages; and (2) immunity from suit, which means the plaintiff cannot even sue over the matter. If the district is immune from suit, any lawsuit filed will be dismissed because of a lack of jurisdiction. Obviously, if the school is immune from being sued, it is automatically protected from Liability for damages.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Construction Insurance and UK Construction Contracts

  • Roger ter Haar, Anna Laney, Marshall Levine(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Informa Law from Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 3 Legal Liability 1 Introduction 3.1 By the very nature of a construction site, where heavy machinery and plant is engaged in close proximity to workers and buildings, often in confined spaces, the risk of accidents involving personal injury and property damage is always present, despite stringent safety regulations. Chapter 28 below explains the law and practice in respect of the health and safety obligations under statute. 3.2 In addition, new and developing technology in design and construction means that some defects in projects are almost bound to occur and may well be expensive to repair. Due to the multi-party involvement in the design and construction process, combined with probable successive multiple ownership of the completed project, comparatively few parties involved are likely to be in a contractual relationship with one another. In consequence tort-based Liability is likely to be an important consideration, in addition to the rights and liabilities that arise out of contract. 3.3 The main heads of civil Liability under which an aggrieved party can bring his action include: (1) negligence; (2) nuisance; (3) strict Liability; (4) trespass to land; (5) breach of statutory duty; and (6) contractual Liability. 3.4 Items (1) to (5) are generally referred to as torts. Recoverable losses in tort are broadly limited to losses involving physical harm to persons or property. Generally the law is restrictive as to the extent that pure economic losses are recoverable in tort. The law of contract does not make this distinction and express wording within building contracts is liable to widen the liabilities of the parties to a contract beyond their normal rights, duties and liabilities under the law of tort

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Cornes and Lupton's Design Liability in the Construction Industry

  • Sarah Lupton(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  The law of tort is separate and distinct from the law of contract. A breach of contract arises from the failure to perform an obligation undertaken by a party to a contract. Liability in tort arises independently of contract. Every book on tort begins by explaining how difficult it is to define a tort. It is a fact that a definition covering every aspect is extremely difficult. A simple, and rather simplistic definition is that a tort is any act or omission that infringes an obligation imposed by the law which gives the injured party the right to bring an action for damages.

  A simple example of a tortious Liability is that arising in cases of car accidents where there is no contractual arrangement between the parties; a Liability arises on the part of the party at fault to make good the damages to the innocent party. Designers can, therefore, have a Liability to make good damage to persons who are not parties to their design contracts.

  3.2  Liability and Parties in Tort

  It is beyond the scope of this book to consider those who could possibly be parties to an action in tort. However, the most common parties are likely to be companies and partnerships, as well as individuals. Insofar as companies are concerned, they can sue for all torts committed against them. There are, of course, some torts that cannot be committed against companies by reason of the fact that they are artificial legal entities. For example, a company cannot be assaulted.

  All the partners of a firm are liable for any tort committed by a partner who committed the tort in the ordinary course of the firm’s business or with the express or implied authority of the co-partners. This Liability arises on the basis of vicarious Liability (see below) because each partner is the agent of his or her co-partners.

  3.3  Vicarious Liability

  A person who commits a tort is liable for the damage caused. Another person can also be liable in respect of the same tort even though he or she did not commit it. This can arise, for example, where an employee commits a tort in the course of employment; the employer will be liable for the tort of the employee. This is known as vicarious Liability.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Ethics and Law for Neurosciences Clinicians

  Foundations and Evolving Challenges

  • James E Szalados(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Rutgers University Press

    (Publisher)

  3   •   CIVIL LAW AND Liability The Law of Medical Malpractice CIVIL NEGLIGENCE IN GENERAL

  The concept of negligence developed from English Common Law. Negligence is a specific form of tort and is governed by tort law. Tort is the Old French word for “wrong.” Torts are heavily based in ethics and morality and are also based in normative concepts such as justice, rights, and duties. A tort is an act or omission that causes an injury or harm to another; it is a civil wrong for which courts impose Liability and a duty of compensation by the wrongdoer to the harmed. The intent of tort laws is to provide relief to injured parties. Torts are generally classified as (1) intentional torts, (2) negligent torts, and (3) strict Liability torts such as product Liability. There are many tort causes of action that include, for example, trespass, defamation, invasion of privacy, assault, battery, negligence, product Liability, and negligent or intentional infliction of emotional distress. Torts are distinguished from crimes and are therefore governed by civil statutes rather than criminal ones. The goal of the judicial process in torts is to provide a remedy to the injured and thus requires that the plaintiff demonstrate and claim a compensable harm. Judicial awards in torts compensate the plaintiff financially in an attempt to “make the injured party whole” through a formal redress of wrongs. Since patients who have been injured either through a medical mishap or medical error may have lifelong impairment, the goal of the justice system is to provide reasonable compensation for injuries suffered through negligent acts.

  Negligence is a tort that is generally defined as either (1) the failure to exercise the degree of care toward others that a reasonable or prudent person would do in the circumstances or (2) taking an action that a reasonable person would not. An allegation of another’s negligence requires that the injured party (the plaintiff) prove (1) that the party alleged to be negligent had a duty to the injured party; (2) that the defendant’s action, or failure to act, was unreasonable; (3) that the damages were proximately caused by that unreasonable act; and (4) that the injuries were “reasonably foreseeable” at the time of the alleged action. Thus, negligence requires a reasonable person standard; a person may be found to have acted negligently if he or she departed from the conduct expected of a reasonably prudent person acting under similar circumstances. Under the law, which requires an objective standard for adjudication, the reasonable person is not simply an average person but is instead a composite of the community; in a sense, the reasonable person is a societal moral construct regarding a norm of behavior. Once again, the operative elements within the tort of negligence are (1) reasonableness and (2) foreseeability.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Business Law

  • David Kelly, Ruby Hammer, Janice Denoncourt, John Hendy(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The implementation of the Compensation Act 2006 was a partial attempt to respond to such concerns and is discussed during the section on breach of duty. The Review of Civil Litigation Costs (Jackson Review, 2010) led by Jackson LJ, made a number of recommendations to reduce the costs of civil litigation. The recommendations of the report sent shockwaves through the personal injury sector of legal services with many arguing it would reduce access to civil justice as opposed to enhancing it. Implementation of the reforms has led to the introduction of a costs budgeting regime, which requires litigants and their legal teams to think realistically from the outset about how much a litigated claim will cost, whether the cost is proportionate to the value of the claim, and what issues may arise that might cause a costs budget to increase.

  9.1 Introduction

  Negligence is a tort. A tort is a wrongful act against an individual, or body corporate, that gives rise to a civil claim usually for damages, although other remedies are available (for example injunctions). Liability arising in tort is not dependent upon the existence of a contractual relationship (see previous chapters) and obligations in tort are not agreed to voluntarily like many contractual terms, rather, obligations in tort are imposed by the law. Liability is generally based on fault, although there are exceptions to this, and it is the courts that develop the principles relating to standards of care and required conduct. The motive of the defendant in committing the tort is generally irrelevant.

  There are several kinds of harm for which tort law affords potential protection, for example trespass to land and person, defamation of character and nuisance. Negligence, however, is now the most important of all the torts, not only because an understanding of it is vital to the comprehension of other torts, such as employers’ and occupiers’ Liability, but also because it is the one tort that is constantly developing in the light of social and economic change. This can be seen by reference to professional negligence and Liability for economic loss, all of which were originally only compensated if there was in existence a valid contract; in other words ‘no contract, no claim’. After a period of continual development in the scope and application of negligence within these areas, more recent case law indicates that the courts are more cautious in the creation of new duties. The wider economic implications on the public and private sectors are taken into account by the courts under what are referred to as ‘policy considerations’ and such considerations continue to influence the courts’ decisions when deciding whether or not to extend the scope of actions in negligence. Whether this should be an issue for the courts is always open to debate, but if the courts are to be pragmatic, then they may have no choice but to be restrained in certain economic climates. Nonetheless, if justified, the courts will extend Liability to new situations and have also recognised that a duty of care in tort can co-exist with contractual Liability (see Customs and Excise Commissioners v Barclays Bank plc

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law

  • Roscoe Pound, Marshall. L DeRosa(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  in rem” are so misleading in their implications, as any teacher soon learns, that we may leave them to the textbooks of analytical jurisprudence. In this lecture, I shall use the simple word “Liability” for the situation whereby one may exact legally and the other is legally subjected to the exaction. Using the word in that sense, I shall inquire into the philosophical basis of Liability and the system of the law on that subject as related to that basis. Yellowplush said of spelling that every gentleman was entitled to his own. We have no authoritative institutional book of Anglo-American law, enacted by sovereign authority, and hence every teacher of law is entitled to his own terminology.

  So far as the beginnings of law had theories, the first theory of Liability was in terms of a duty to buy off the vengeance of him to whom an injury had been done whether by oneself or by something in one’s power. The idea is put strikingly in the Anglo-Saxon legal proverb, “ Buy spear from side or bear it,” that is, buy off the feud or fight it out. One who does an injury or stands between an injured person and his vengeance, by protecting a kinsman, a child or a domestic animal that has wrought an injury, must compound for the injury or bear the vengeance of the injured. As the social interest in peace and order—the general security in its lowest terms—comes to be secured more effectively by regulation and ultimate putting down of the feud as a remedy, payment of composition becomes a duty rather than a privilege, or in the case of injuries by persons or things in one’s power a duty alternative to a duty of surrendering the offending child or animal. The next step is to measure the composition not in terms of the vengeance to be bought off but in terms of the injury. A final step is to put it in terms of reparation. These steps are taken haltingly and merge into one another, so that we may hear of a “penalty of reparation.” But the result is to turn composition for vengeance into reparation for injury. Thus recovery of a sum of money by way of penalty for a delict is the historical starting point of Liability.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Directors' and Officers' Liability Insurance

  • Adolfo Paolini, Deepak Nambisan(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Informa Law from Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In other words, anybody who causes damage is obliged to make that damage good. That obligation may arise from two different sources: first, as a result of a breach of contract (“contractual Liability”); and secondly, as a result of a failure to comply with the general duty of care not to cause damage to third parties (the resulting Liability being termed “delictual” or “quasidelictual”). 2 We consider those two sources in turn. II.  CONTRACTUAL Liability 7.04 Where a contractual relationship exists between the parties, one can ascertain the extent of the wrong and measure the damage thereby caused by assessing what the parties promised to each other and were, therefore, entitled to expect. In civil law a number of principles of contractual Liability have developed as follows: (a) Good faith 7.05 Contracts must be executed in good faith. 3 This abstract concept, difficult to define with clarity, imposes upon the parties the duty to act fairly and reasonable in performing their contractual obligations, from the early stages and throughout the execution of the agreement. The duty, therefore, embraces the process of contract formation, seeking to ensure that anybody who has given their consent to enter into a contract, in so doing, has proceeded with absolute freedom and willingness and with knowledge of the subject-matter of the contract. The concept may have a further role to play in that there is “good faith” when due care is exercised while performing a contract

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Answering for Crime

  Responsibility and Liability in the Criminal Law

  • R A Duff(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  2 This gives us a simple account of the distinction between responsibility and Liability, and of offences and defences. Responsibility is for the commission of an offence consisting in actus reus plus mens rea: only once that is proved does the defendant have anything to answer for; only then can any formal burden of proof be laid on the defendant. Liability then depends on whether the defendant can offer evidence in support of a defence that is sufficient at least to create a reasonable doubt about her guilt, all things considered.

  There is then a striking contrast between criminal responsibility, as thus understood, and moral responsibility, since we have seen that moral responsibility for harms that we cause is typically strict, in the sense that it does not depend on anything analogous to mens rea. If I act in a way that in fact damages your property, I am morally answerable for that action and that harm, even if I caused it through wholly non-culpable accident or inadvertence: my denial of intention, recklessness or negligence blocks (if it is believable) Liability to blame, but does not negate responsibility—whereas the absence of any such ‘fault element’ negates an essential element of the offence of criminal damage.3 That is why in moral discourse inadvertence and accident count as ‘excuses’, whereas in criminal law they typically do not (and so why moral philosophers sometimes find legal theorists’ use of ‘excuse’ puzzling): for, as we will see in more detail in Chapter 11, excuses admit responsibility but deny Liability—which is how inadvertence and accident function in moral discourse, but not typically in the criminal law.

  This contrast between moral and criminal responsibility raises one immediate question. Why should criminal responsibility not be strict in the way that moral responsibility is: why should the initial probative burden on the prosecution not just be to prove that the defendant committed the actus reus—which would then place on the defendant at least the evidential burden of offering evidence that mens rea was lacking? A further question is this: if criminal responsibility is rightly less strict than moral responsibility, why should the conditions of criminal responsibility not be expanded even further, to include all the conditions of Liability: why should the prosecution not have to prove the absence of any plausible defence, as well as the commission of the offence? An answer to the second question was effectively provided in Chapter 9: if offences are presumptive public wrongs, it is not unreasonable to expect citizens to answer to their fellows for committing an offence, ie for doing something that is certainly their business as a presumptive wrong—especially if answering need involve no more than producing evidence of a defence that suffices to create a reasonable doubt about guilt.4

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book