In: Finance
Discuss the four elements of negligence, and illustrate each element with an example.
There are 4 elements of negligence.
1.DUTY :
A duty arises when law recognises relationship between defendant and plaintiff which requires defendant to act in certain manners towards plaintiff.Before a person can recover for damages from negligence of an act defendant must have duty of care towards victim.in short defendant is expected to act like average person in the same situation would have acted say, a person having vehicle will follow traffic rules.
another example can be one person loading bags of sugars onto a truck and stuck a child with one of bags, then basic question will be whether that person i.e. defendant owns a duty to that child.? so to be clear more about the defendant's duty court will see whether loading truck was in public place and child was merely passing by then court will conclude that defendant owned a duty towards child but on the other hand if it was private property and defendant did not know that child was present at the time of loading the truck then he will less likely to have duty toward the child.
2.BREACH OF DUTY
Once appropriate duty has been established plaintiff ( who brought case against another person in court ) must show defendant have breach of duty.the court will decide on the question of fact whether duty exists or not.
Thus carrying above example judge of the court will decide whether defendant exercised reasonable care in handling bags of grain near the child.
3.CAUSATION
This says that defendant's action have directly injured the plaintiff.This means plaintiff would not have suffered injury if defendant would have acted this way.and we can say that cause of action can not be removed from injury that defendant can escape the liability.
If we continue with the example child would be saved from injury if defendant would have checked the grain bags.
4. DAMAGES
The final element of negligence of claim is damages.This requires the plaintiff be able to show how he suffered because of an accident.this also requires documented evidences like hospital treatment records, medical bills etc.Some claims also allow plaintiff to recover for emotional distress recovery but in such cases recovery basis may be different.