Facts
Martin (P) appealed the order of the Appellate Division that reversed a judgment entered after jury trial that found Herzog (D) negligent and P blameless.
Martin (P) was driving his buggy on the night of August 21, 1915. P was killed in a collision between his buggy and Herzog's (D) car. It was dark when the accident occurred. P was driving without lights and D did not keep to the right of the center of the highway. P alleged that D was driving on the wrong side of the road. D claimed that P was contributorily negligent for driving without headlights as required under the law. In the body of the charge the trial judge said that the jury could consider the absence of light "in determining whether the plaintiff's intestate was guilty of contributory negligence in failing to have a light upon the buggy as provided by law. I do not mean to say that the absence of light necessarily makes him negligent, but it is a fact for your consideration." D requested a ruling that the absence of a light on the plaintiff's vehicle was "prima facie evidence of contributory negligence." This request was refused, and the jury were again instructed that they might consider the absence of lights as some evidence of negligence, but that it was not conclusive evidence. P then requested a charge that "the fact that the plaintiff's intestate was driving without a light is not negligence in itself," and to this the court acceded. The jury was instructed that they were at liberty to treat the omission of the lights either as innocent or as culpable. The jury gave the verdict to P. The Appellate Division reversed that verdict. P appealed to the Court of Appeals.
Legal analysis of Martin v. Herzog
Martin v. Herzog demonstrates the following principles of tort law:
A tort, in common law jurisdictions, is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act.
1. Violation of a statute is negligence per se.
2. Under the doctrine of contributory negligence, the plaintiff's negligence is a complete defense. If the plaintiff's negligence was a cause of the injury, the plaintiff is barred from recovery.
In some common law jurisdictions, contributory negligence is a defense to a tort claim based on negligence. If it is available, the defense completely bars plaintiffs from any recovery if they contribute to their own injury through their own negligence.
In an opinion written by Benjamin N. Cardozo, the New York Court of Appeals affirmed the Appellate Division's ruling that the trial judge's jury instruction was erroneous. The trial judge had instructed the jury to consider the plaintiff's statutory violation when determining whether the plaintiff was contributorily negligent. The Court of Appeals held that the question of contributory negligence should not have been submitted to the jury. The plaintiff's violation of the statute was not mere evidence of negligence to be considered by the fact-finder; it was negligence as a matter of law.
The statute requiring highway travelers to have headlights codified the common law duty of one highway traveler to another. In failing to have headlights on his buggy, the plaintiff's intestate breached a duty of care to other highway travelers. (Cf. Tedla v. Ellman , where the plaintiffs' violation of a statute was not negligent because, in their particular situation, violating the statute was safer than adhering to it.) If a plaintiff's negligence per se is to be contributory negligence, it must be a cause of the injury. In Martin v. Herzog, the Court of Appeals found the plaintiff's traveling without lights an hour after sundown to be prima facie sufficient evidence of negligence contributing to the accident.
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In law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to an injury that the courts deem the event to be the cause of that injury. There are two types of causation in the law: cause-in-fact, and proximate cause. Cause-in-fact is determined by the "but for" test: But for the action, the result would not have happened. The action is a necessary condition, but may not be a sufficient condition, for the resulting injury. A few circumstances exist where the but for test is ineffective. Since but-for causation is very easy to show, a second test is used to determine if an action is close enough to a harm in a "chain of events" to be legally valid. This test is called proximate cause. Proximate cause is a key principle of Insurance and is concerned with how the loss or damage actually occurred. There are several competing theories of proximate cause. For an act to be deemed to cause a harm, both tests must be met; proximate cause is a legal limitation on cause-in-fact.
In the common law of torts, res ipsa loquitur is a doctrine that infers negligence from the very nature of an accident or injury in the absence of direct evidence on how any defendant behaved. Although modern formulations differ by jurisdiction, common law originally stated that the accident must satisfy the necessary elements of negligence: duty, breach of duty, causation, and injury. In res ipsa loquitur, the elements of duty of care, breach, and causation are inferred from an injury that does not ordinarily occur without negligence.
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928), is a leading case in American tort law on the question of liability to an unforeseeable plaintiff. The case was heard by the New York Court of Appeals, the highest state court in New York; its opinion was written by Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo, a leading figure in the development of American common law and later a United States Supreme Court justice.
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.
Comparative negligence, or non-absolute contributory negligence outside the United States, is a partial legal defense that reduces the amount of damages that a plaintiff can recover in a negligence-based claim, based upon the degree to which the plaintiff's own negligence contributed to cause the injury. When the defense is asserted, the factfinder, usually a jury, must decide the degree to which the plaintiff's negligence and the combined negligence of all other relevant actors all contributed to cause the plaintiff's damages. It is a modification of the doctrine of contributory negligence that disallows any recovery by a plaintiff whose negligence contributed even minimally to causing the damages.
Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582 is an English tort law case that lays down the typical rule for assessing the appropriate standard of reasonable care in negligence cases involving skilled professionals : the Bolam test. Where the defendant has represented him- or herself as having more than average skills and abilities, that is as a professional "as all doctors do", this test expects standards which must be in accordance with a responsible body of opinion, even if others differ in opinion. In other words, the Bolam test states that "If a doctor reaches the standard of a responsible body of medical opinion, he is not negligent".
The last clear chance is a doctrine in the law of torts that is employed in contributory negligence jurisdictions. Under this doctrine, a negligent plaintiff can nonetheless recover if he is able to show that the defendant had the last opportunity to avoid the accident. Though the stated rationale has differed depending on the court adopting the doctrine, the underlying idea is to mitigate the harshness of the contributory negligence rule. The defendant can also use this doctrine as a defense. If the plaintiff has the last clear chance to avoid the accident, the defendant will not be liable.
Comparative responsibility is a doctrine of tort law that compares the fault of each party in a lawsuit for a single injury. Comparative responsibility may apply to intentional torts as well as negligence and encompasses the doctrine of comparative negligence.
Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal.2d 80, 199 P.2d 1 (1948), is a seminal California Supreme Court tort law decision relating to the issue of liability where a plaintiff cannot identify with specificity which among multiple defendants caused his harm. The case established the doctrine of alternative liability and has had its greatest influence in the area of product liability in American jurisprudence.
Tedla v. Ellman was a 1939 New York Court of Appeals case that was influential in establishing the bounds of the negligence per se doctrine. Ordinarily, a statutory violation constitutes negligence. However, the court, in an opinion written by Irving Lehman, instead held that because this violation occurred in a situation not anticipated by the drafters of the statute and was in keeping with the spirit of the statute, it did not constitute negligence.
Negligent entrustment is a cause of action in tort law that arises where one party is held liable for negligence because they negligently provided another party with a dangerous instrumentality, and the entrusted party caused injury to a third party with that instrumentality. The cause of action most frequently arises where one person allows another to drive their automobile.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to tort law:
Landeros v. Flood was a 1976 court case in the state of California involving child abuse and alleged medical malpractice.
Hall v Hebert is a leading tort law case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada on the defences of contributory negligence and ex turpi causa non oritur actio.
Venning v Chin (1974) 10 SASR 299 is a Supreme Court of South Australia Full Court judgement, by which it was decided that in trespass cases, the onus lies on the defendant to disprove fault. However, for injuries caused in highway accidents, the onus is on the plaintiff to prove fault on the part of the defendant.
