Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances.
Res ipsa loquitur is a doctrine in common law and Roman-Dutch law jurisdictions under which a court can infer negligence from the very nature of an accident or injury in the absence of direct evidence on how any defendant behaved in the context of tort litigation. Although specific criteria differ by jurisdiction, an action typically must satisfy the following elements of negligence: the existence of a duty of care, breach of appropriate standard of care, causation, and injury. In res ipsa loquitur, the existence of the first three elements is inferred from the existence of 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.
Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that the United States does not have a general federal common law and that U.S. federal courts must apply state law, not federal law, to lawsuits between parties from different states that do not involve federal questions. In reaching this holding, the Court overturned almost a century of federal civil procedure case law, and established the foundation of the modern law of diversity jurisdiction.
Vaughan v Menlove (1837) 132 ER 490 (CP) is a leading English tort law case that first introduced the concept of the reasonable person in law.
Personal injury is a legal term for an injury to the body, mind, or emotions, as opposed to an injury to property. In common law jurisdictions the term is most commonly used to refer to a type of tort lawsuit in which the person bringing the suit has suffered harm to their body or mind. Personal injury lawsuits are filed against the person or entity that caused the harm through negligence, gross negligence, reckless conduct, or intentional misconduct, and in some cases on the basis of strict liability. Different jurisdictions describe the damages in different ways, but damages typically include the injured person's medical bills, pain and suffering, and diminished quality of life.
Provident Tradesmens Bank & Trust Co. v. Patterson, 390 U.S. 102 (1968), is a United States Supreme Court decision which clarified the meaning and application of Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In a unanimous decision, the Court reversed the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and held that an automobile owner's interest in a suit against his insurer did not make him an "indispensable party" to that suit under Rule 19. The Court also made clear that Supreme Court precedent predating the enactment of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure did not create any substantive right in non-parties to be joined in case, as the Court of Appeals had apparently thought.
Martin v. Herzog, Ct. of App. of N.Y., 228 N Y. 164, 126 N.E. 814 (1920), was a New York Court of Appeals case.
Schlemmer v. Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway Co., 205 U.S. 1 (1907), was a cause of action for the death of the plaintiff's intestate, Adam M. Schlemmer, while trying to couple a shovel car to a caboose.
Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20 (1907), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that found while an indictment in a removal proceeding constitutes prima facie evidence of probable cause, it is not conclusive, so evidence put forth by a defendant showing that no offense triable in the district to which removal is sought had been committed is admissible, and its exclusion is not mere error, but the denial of a right secured under the Federal Constitution.
Sully v. Drennan, 113 U.S. 287 (1885), was an appeal from an order of the Circuit Court for the Southern District of Iowa in the United States remanding to the state court a case which had been removed from the state into the circuit court.
Baylis v. Travelers' Insurance Company, 113 U.S. 316 (1885), was a case where after close of testimony in a trial, the defendant moved to dismiss on the ground of the insufficiency of the evidence to sustain a verdict. This motion was denied and the plaintiff asked that the case be submitted to the jury to determine the facts on the evidence. The court refused this, and plaintiff excepted. The court then ordered a verdict for plaintiff, subject to its opinion, whether the facts proved were sufficient to render defendant liable to plaintiff on the cause of action stated. Plaintiff moved for judgment on the verdict, and defendant moved for judgment on the pleadings and minutes of trial. Judgment was rendered for defendant upon an opinion of the court as to the effect of the evidence and as to the law on the facts as deduced from it by the court. Held that the plaintiff was thereby deprived of his constitutional right to a trial by jury, which he had not waived, and to which he was entitled.
Chicago & Northwestern R. Co. v. Crane, 113 U.S. 424 (1885), was a suit brought by a taxpayer and resident in the Town of Polk City, Iowa, on behalf of himself and all other resident voters, taxpayers and property holders, commenced suit in a state court of Iowa against two companies, praying for a peremptory writ of mandamus to compel the reconstruction and operation of the old line after the Chicago and North Western Railway, an Illinois corporation. changed the line and made it avoid the city, constructing a branch to the latter. C&NW Railway was leased the line by the D&M Railroad Company, an Iowa Corporation, who had received from a township in Iowa, in consideration of its agreement to construct and maintain a railroad to a city in the township, the proceeds of a special tax and a conveyance of a large amount of swamp lands. It constructed the railroad and operating it for a time before leasing it to C&N Railway.
Ultramares Corporation v. Touche, 174 N.E. 441 (1932) is a US tort law case regarding negligent misstatement, decided by Cardozo, C.J. It contained the now famous line on "floodgates" that the law should not admit "to a liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class."
Waite v North-Eastern Railway Co (1858) EB&E 719 is an old English tort law case concerning negligence and contributory negligence in the pre-Donoghue v. Stevenson and pre-Law Reform Act 1945 era. It was heard initially in the Exchequer Chamber.
Chase v. Curtis, 113 U.S. 452 (1885), was a suit brought under the provisions of §12 of the Act of the Legislature of New York of February 17, 1848, as amended June 7, 1875, where trustees of corporations formed for manufacturing, mining, mechanical, or chemical purposes are made liable for debts of the company on failure to file the reports of capital and of debts required by that section, is penal in its character, and must be construed with strictness as against those sought to be subjected to its liabilities. Suit was brought to recover from the trustees of such a corporation the amount of a judgment against the corporation, the judgment roll is not competent evidence to establish a debt due from the corporation to the plaintiff.
A claim in tort against a corporation formed under that act, as amended, is not a debt of the company for which the trustees may become liable jointly and severally under the provisions of the Act. In a proceeding to enforce a liability created by a state statute, the courts of the United States give to a judgment of a state court the same effect, either as evidence or as cause of action, which is given to it in like proceedings in the courts of the state whose laws are invoked in the enforcement.
The complaint in this action, after alleging that the plaintiff in error was a citizen of Pennsylvania, and the defendants citizens of New York, proceeded as follows:
"Wherefore the plaintiffs demand judgment against the above-named defendants in the sum of $40,828.97, with interest on $40,500.00 from the 30th day of July, 1874, and on $328.97 from the 3d day of October, 1874, besides the costs and disbursements of this action."
To this complaint the defendants severally demurred on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The demurrer was sustained and judgment rendered in favor of the defendants dismissing the complaint, to reverse which this writ of error is prosecuted.
The statute on which the action is founded is as follows:
"SECTION 1. The twelfth section of the 'Act to authorize the formation of corporations for manufacturing, mining, mechanical, or chemical purposes,' passed February 17, 1848, as said section was amended by chapter 657 of the Laws of 1871, is hereby further amended, so that section 12 shall read as follows:"
"§ 12. Every such company shall, within twenty days from the first day of January, if a year from the time of the filing of the certificate of incorporation shall then have expired, and if so long a time shall not have expired, then within twenty days from the first day of January in each year after the expiration of a year from the time of filing such certificate, make a report, which shall be published in some newspaper published in the town, city, or village, or, if there be no newspaper published in said town, city, or village, then in some newspaper published nearest the place where the business of the company is carried on, which shall state the amount of capital, and of the proportion actually paid in, and the amount of its existing debts, which report shall be signed by the president and a majority of the trustees, and shall be verified by the oath of the president or secretary of said company, and filed in the office of the clerk of the county where the business of the company shall be carried on, and if any of said companies shall fail so to do, all the trustees of the company shall be jointly and severally liable for all the debts of the company then existing, and for all that shall be contracted before such report shall be made. But whenever under this section a judgment shall be recovered against a trustee severally, all the trustees of the company shall contribute a ratable share of the amount paid by such trustee on such judgment, and such trustee shall have a right of action against his co-trustees, jointly or severally, to recover from them their proportion of the amount so paid on such judgment, provided that nothing in this act contained shall affect any action now pending.
It is finally insisted that a judgment against the corporation, although founded upon a tort, becomes ipso facto a debt by contract, being a contract of record or a specialty in the nature of a contract. But we have already seen that the settled course of decision in the New York Court of Appeals rejects the judgment against the corporation as either evidence or ground of liability against the trustees, and founds the latter upon the obligation of the corporation on which the judgment itself rests. And it was decided by this Court in the case of Louisiana v. New Orleans, 109 U. S. 285, that a liability for a tort, created by statute, although reduced to judgment by a recovery for the damages suffered, did not thereby become a debt by contract in the sense of the Constitution of the United States forbidding state legislation impairing its obligation, for the reason that the term 'contract' is used in the Constitution in its ordinary sense as signifying the agreement of two or more minds, for considerations proceeding from one to the other, to do or not to do certain acts. Mutual assent to its terms is of its very essence."
The same definition applies in the present instance, and excludes the liability of the defendants, as trustees of the corporation, for its torts, although reduced to judgment.
The court found no error in the judgment of the circuit court, and it was accordingly affirmed.
Albro v. The Agawam Canal Co., 6 Cush. 75, was a case in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that contributed to the "fellow servant rule".
Cooper Manufacturing Co. v. Ferguson, 113 U.S. 727 (1885), was a suit regarding the legitimacy of a sale of a steam engine and other machinery in the State of Ohio.
Vorster v Santam Insurance Co Ltd and Another is an important case in South African law, in particular the law of delict. It was heard from 17 to 19 November, 1972, with judgment handed down on 22 November.
Read v Great Eastern Railway (1868) LR 3 QB 555 was an English tort law case which created a strong authority enshrining the principle that if a deceased person has settled a damages claim discharging all the claims and causes of action against the defendant in full satisfaction within their lifetime, no further action can be brought by their representatives if the injured person subsequently dies from the same injuries. It was held that a claim for loss of dependency under section 1 of the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, also known as "Lord Campbell's Act", could not be brought if a person died from the effects of an injury for which they had settled a claim during their lifetime, as they would not be capable of any fresh cause of action.
