Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people or property.
Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land.
Step-Saver Data Systems, Inc. v. Wyse Technology was a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primarily concerned with the enforceability of box-top licenses and end user license agreements (EULA) and their place in U.S. contract law. During the relevant period, Step-Saver Data Systems was a value-added reseller, combining hardware and software from different vendors to offer a fully functioning computer system to various end users. Step-Saver's products included software produced by Software Link, Inc (TSL), computer terminals produced by Wyse Technology, and main computers produced by IBM. The fundamental question raised in this case was whether the shrinkwrap licenses accompanying TSL's software were legally binding, given that different terms were negotiated over the phone with Step-Saver prior to receiving physical copies of the software. The case was first heard in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where the court ruled that the shrinkwrap licenses were legally binding. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit subsequently reversed this decision, ruling that the shrinkwrap licenses were not legally binding.
This article addresses torts in United States law. As such, it covers primarily common law. Moreover, it provides general rules, as individual states all have separate civil codes. There are three general categories of torts: intentional torts, negligence, and strict liability torts.
In United States federal law, the Daubert standard is a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. A party may raise a Daubert motion, a special motion in limine raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. The Daubert trilogy are the three United States Supreme Court cases that articulated the Daubert standard:
A Civil Action is a 1998 American legal drama film written and directed by Steven Zaillian, based on the 1995 book of the same name by Jonathan Harr. Starring John Travolta, Robert Duvall, James Gandolfini, Dan Hedaya, John Lithgow, William H. Macy, Kathleen Quinlan, and Tony Shalhoub, it tells the true story of a court case about environmental pollution that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980s. The film and court case revolve around the issue of trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, and its contamination of a local aquifer. A lawsuit was filed over industrial operations that appeared to have caused fatal cases of leukemia and cancer, as well as a wide variety of other health problems, among the citizens of the city. The case involved is Anne Anderson, et al., v. Cryovac, Inc., et al.. The first reported decision in the case is at 96 F.R.D. 431. Duvall was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
Amount in controversy is a term used in civil procedure to denote the amount at stake in a lawsuit, in particular in connection with a requirement that persons seeking to bring a lawsuit in a particular court must be suing for a certain minimum amount before that court may hear the case.
In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643, was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed copyright infringement claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing service was appropriate because the copyright owners were likely to prevail on their claims of contributory infringement, and that the services could have non-infringing users was insufficient reason to reverse the district court's decision. The appellate court also noted that the defendant could have limited the quantity of the infringements if it had eliminated an encryption system feature, and if it had monitored the use of its systems. This made it so that the defense did not fall within the safe harbor of 17 U.S.C. § 512(i). and could not be used as an excuse to not know about the infringement. In addition, the court decided that the harm done to the plaintiff was irreparable and outweighed any harm to the defendant created by the injunction.
Dennis G. Jacobs is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He previously served as Chief Judge of the Second Circuit from October 1, 2006 to August 31, 2013.
Spectrum Sports, Inc. v. McQuillan, 506 U.S. 447 (1993), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States rejected the assertion that attempted monopolization may be proven merely by demonstration of unfair or predatory conduct. Instead, conduct of a single firm could be held to be unlawful attempted monopolization only when it actually monopolized or dangerously threatened to do so. Thus, the Court rejected the conclusion that injury to competition could be presumed to follow from certain conduct. The causal link must be demonstrated.
Conversion is an intentional tort consisting of "taking with the intent of exercising over the chattel an ownership inconsistent with the real owner's right of possession". In England & Wales, it is a tort of strict liability. Its equivalents in criminal law include larceny or theft and criminal conversion. In those jurisdictions that recognise it, criminal conversion is a lesser crime than theft/larceny.
Walter Jay Skinner was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
A Civil Action is a 1995 non-fiction book by Jonathan Harr about a water contamination case in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the 1980s. The book became a best-seller. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction.
Religious Technology Center v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services, Inc., 907 F. Supp. 1361, is a U.S. district court case about whether the operator of a computer bulletin board service ("BBS") and Internet access provider that allows that BBS to reach the Internet should be liable for copyright infringement committed by a subscriber of the BBS. The plaintiff Religious Technology Center ("RTC") argued that defendant Netcom was directly, contributorily, and vicariously liable for copyright infringement. Netcom moved for summary judgment, disputing RTC's claims and raising a First Amendment argument and a fair use defense. The district court of the Northern District of California concluded that RTC's claims of direct and vicarious infringement failed, but genuine issues of fact precluded summary judgment on contributory liability and fair use.
Allison Engine Co. v. United States ex rel. Sanders, 553 U.S. 662 (2008), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that plaintiffs under the False Claims Act must prove that the false claim was made with the specific intent of inducing the government to pay or approve payment of a false or fraudulent claim, rather than merely defrauding a contractor. Congress overruled this decision with the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009.
Sterling v. Velsicol Chemical Corp., 855 F.2d 1188, was an environmental lawsuit filed by citizens of Hardeman County, Tennessee, led by Steven Sterling, who sued Velsicol Chemical Corporation for contaminating their water supply through improper disposal of toxic chemicals.
American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression v. Strickland, 560 F.3d 443, is a decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals involving a constitutional challenge—both facially and as-applied to internet communications—to an Ohio statute prohibiting the dissemination or display to juveniles of certain sexually-explicit materials or performances. The Sixth Circuit panel declined to resolve the constitutional issue but, instead, certified two questions to the Ohio Supreme Court regarding the interpretation of the statute. The Ohio Supreme Court answered both questions affirmatively and placed a narrowing construction on the statute. Since the Ohio Supreme Court's decision, the Sixth Circuit has not reheard the case.
The eggshell rule is a well-established legal doctrine in common law, used in some tort law systems, with a similar doctrine applicable to criminal law. The rule states that, in a tort case, the unexpected frailty of the injured person is not a valid defense to the seriousness of any injury caused to them.
Goldwater v. Ginzburg was a 1969 United States court ruling on defamation.
Marcus Gray et al. v. Katy Perry et al. was a copyright infringement lawsuit against Katy Perry, Jordan Houston, Lukasz Gottwald, Karl Martin Sandberg, Henry Russell Walter ("Cirkut"), Capitol Records and others, in which the plaintiffs Marcus Gray ("Flame"), Emanuel Lambert and Chike Ojukwu alleged that Perry's song "Dark Horse" infringed their exclusive rights in their song "Joyful Noise" pursuant to 17 U.S.C § 106. The focus of the similarity was a short descending pattern known in music as an "ostinato". In both songs, a short ostinato is used repeatedly to form part of the beat of each song and both ostinatos share similar descending shapes. Gray et al. claimed that the instrumental beat of the ostinato in "Joyful Noise" was protectable original expression and that Perry et al. had access to and copied the ostinato when composing "Dark Horse." On March 16, 2020, Judge Christina A. Snyder ultimately found that Gray et al. had failed to satisfy the extrinsic test for substantial similarity, overturning a previous jury verdict which had sided with the plaintiffs. Snyder's ruling was affirmed on appeal.
