Liability And Defenses In Tort Law: A Case Study

The Concept of Tort Law and Elements of Liability

In the given case, three of the plaintiffs are there who have suffered from direct or indirect loss due to the negligence of Sam. The issue is to check that whether the defendant i.e. Sam is responsible for such loss or not?

Tort is a kind of Common Law (Legal Information Institute, 2018). The lead concept of this law is that if a person owns a duty of care towards other and fails to perform the same then such responsible person will be held liable if due to such failure, another person comes out with damages. In general, many of the relationships exist there in which a person owns the standard of care in respect of other. In such a situation it is required that the person who owns such duty must act like a responsible person. There can be several modes by which a breaches his/her duty of care. The most common reason and modes of such breach are negligence, nuisance, and defamation (e-law resources, 2018). Negligence is a situation where the person who owns duty of care does not behave like a reasonable person and acts carelessly (findlaw, 2018). While discussing the tort law, this is necessary to mention that in cases related to this law, there must be a loss to the plaintiff. It was held in the case of Re Polemis & Furness Withy & Company Ltd. (1921) 3 KB 560 that in order to hold the defendant liable in the case, the loss accrued to the plaintiff must be the direct result of tort act committed by the defendant.

Loss accrued to the other party can be in form of economic damage, personal injury, or psychiatric injury (Steele, 2014. P. 333). In many of the cases, it has observed that defendant was not on a guilty part as he has taken all the reasonable steps to stop the danger or accident cause of that later on loss accrued to the plaintiff. In such kind of situation, the defendant can take help of defense. Majorly four kinds of defenses are available under Tort Law. The defenses are mentioned hereunder.

1. Volenti non fit injuria:- Defendant can use this defense in those situations where plaintiff was aware with the danger and still accepted all the risk voluntarily. In such a situation, the defendant will not be held liable to pay any damages to the claimant (clatapult, 2018). It was held in the case of Wooldridge v Sumner & Anor(1963) 2 QB 43 that claimant must have full knowledge of the involved risk.
2. Contributory negligence
3. Ex turpi causa
4. Exclusion of Liability

This can be mentioned that to be successful in a case under Tor Law, it is required for a claimant that the following factors must be there:-

1. A duty of care on the part of the defendant.
2. Failure in performing such duty.
3. The claimant must come up with the loss.
4. The defendant must not be eligible for any kind of defense.

In the given case, Sam was a responsible person to refuel aircraft of various companies. Due to his negligence, one day he has refueled aircraft of three companies with impure fuel. Because of such refueling, these aircrafts companies came out with losses. In the first case, aircraft of White Ltd took off successfully but later on, the engine of this aircraft has cut off. Due to such engine failure, the owner of the aircraft i.e. White Ltd. has suffered from a loss of $ 1 million. The lead reason for engine failure of this aircraft was the defective fuel. In addition to this loss, the aircraft also met an accident with a Mercedes Benz car and therefore the car owner suffered from a loss of $ 75.000. As per the decision of the case, Re Polemis & Furness Withy & Company Ltd loss accrued to the car owner was remote and was not directly affected by the act of Sam and was too remote.

Further, when Sam came to know about the incident happened to the aircraft of White Ltd. and the reason thereof, he has acted like a responsible person. He has stopped the aircraft of another company Blue Ltd. by taking off. Although, aircraft has saved from any accident cause of such precaution marked by Sam, yet one of the passengers of the subjective flight has met a loss worth $ 25000, as she was not able to go to her destination cause of cancellation of the flight. It is notable that Sam was not liable to perform any duty of care in respect of passenger.

In the third and last situation, similar to the case of Blue Ltd, Sam has tried to stop the aircraft of Green Ltd., (the third aircraft owner) but the pilot of this flight has denied stopping the aircraft and took off the flight off. Later on, this aircraft has swerved across the runway and suffered from a loss worth $ 200000. In this case, applying Wooldridge v Sumner & Anor, Sam is eligible to take the defense named Volenti non fit injuria.

Conclusion

In all the three studied situations, the liability of Sam is different. In the case of White Ltd, Sam will be liable to pay the damages unto the amount of loss i.e. $ 1 million to the White Ltd. Further, he will not be responsible to pay any damages to Car owner as the loss accrued to Ms. Susan Swift (Car Owner) as this loss was not a direct result of Impure Fuel. In the second case, Sam will not pay any damages to the passenger because there was no duty of care in the account of Sam for the third party i.e. passenger.

At lastly in the third situation, although Sam owned a duty of care to Green Ltd. and the loss accrued was a direct result of the act of Sam, however Sam has given the required warning the pilot and therefore can take the defence of Volenti non fit injuria and will not be liable to for any damages.

References

Clatapult. (2018). General Defences in Tort: Volenti Non Fit Injuria. Retrieved from: https://www.clatapult.com/general-defences-in-tort-volenti-non-fit-injuria/

e-law resources. (2018).  Negligence – duty of care. Retrieved from: https://e-lawresources.co.uk/Tort-law.php

Findlaw. 2018. Negligence and the ‘Reasonable Person’. Retrieved from: https://injury.findlaw.com/accident-injury-law/standards-of-care-and-the-reasonable-person.html

Legal Information Institute. (2018). Tort. Retrieved from: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/tort

Re Polemis & Furness Withy & Company Ltd. (1921) 3 KB 560

Steele, J. (2014). Tort Law: Text, Cases, and Materials, Oxford University Press.

Wooldridge v Sumner & Anor (1963) 2 QB 43