Tort Law A tort is "a wrong or injury to another, other than a breach of contract" ((Barkacs, et al., 2019). There are four purposes of Tort Law, "to compensate innocent persons who are injured, to prevent private retaliation by injured parties, to reinforce a vison of a just society, and to deter future wrongs" ((Barkacs, et al., 2019). Businesses should be aware of the types of Tort Law. If a patron enters a business and harm comes to that patron, they may be compensated under Tort Law. Therefore, many businesses have such strict safety rules. For example, McDonald's and other food chains that serve hot beverages now have warning labels on their cups, alerting customers to the potential dangers of hot liquids. In this scenario, a dangerous snack escaped from his containment, slithered through the air vents and into the neighboring yoga studio. This resulted in Jasmine, the owner of Sunshine Yoga, having a heart attack. I do not think that the act was intentional on The Friendly Dawg's part, so an Intentional Tort would not apply in this case. This also wouldn't fall under the strict- liability tort, as there were no actions taken that were inherently dangerous. The tort that I believe applies to this situation is the negligence tort. Negligence "is the behavior that creates an unreasonable risk of harm to others" and a negligent tort "involve the failure to exercise reasonable care to protect another's person or property" (Barkacs, et al., 2019). Since The Friendly Dawg failed to properly store their animals, a dangerous snack made its way through the vents and into the neighboring studio. Consequently, the snack frightened the owner (Jasmine) to the extent that she had a heart attack. Jasmine can file a claim of negligence against both The Friendly Dawg and landlord Lou. The Friendly Dawg housed, and improperly stored dangerous animals, and landlord Lou did not properly maintain the vent system and allowed dangerous animals to be stored within his property. This demonstrates Duty (the
landlord and The Friendly Dawg's duty to maintain vent systems, and to properly store dangerous animals), Breach of Duty (the landlord and The Friendly Dawg's failure to live up to their duty), Causation (Jasmine had a heart attack due to fright from seeing the dangerous snack in her studio), and Damages (Jasmine had a heart attack, and because of this, was unable to operate her business). As stated in Dynamic Business Law, "courts generally hold that landowners have a duty of care to protect individuals on their property" (Barkacs, et al., 2019). Landlord Lou failed to protect Jasmine, and therefore, can be held liable under the Negligence Tort law.
References: Barkacs, L. L., Browne, N.M., Dhooge, L. J., Herron, D. J., Kubasek, N. K., (2019). Dynamic Business Law (5th Edition). McGraw-Hill Education. https://prod.reader- ui.prod.mheducation.com/epub/sn_3b37d/data-uuid-7aa0280e440b4ffcbeec4dfc4f9739ed