BUS-206 - Business Law I / Prof. Dixon Valerie M. Rodriguez April 18, 2022 Module 7 - Project 3 - Tort Law The word "tort" comes from a French word meaning "wrong." and is a wrongful act, other than a breach of contract, that results in injury to another party's person, property, dignity, or reputation. A tort is a civil wrong, not criminal, and gives the injured party the right to bring a lawsuit against the wrongdoer to recover compensation for injuries sustained. Tort law is the body of law concerning torts. The case presented concerns three people, two of whom are tenants Dave, owner of Friendly Dawg and Jasmine, owner of Sunshine Yoga. The third is their landlord, Lou. Dave recently added live animals to his store, which not only is a breach of the lease in place with Lou but also an interference to Sunshine Yoga's business. An unfortunate event occurred recently where a snake escaped Friendly Dawg through the air vent into Sunshine Yoga, frightening Jasmine so much that she suffered a heart attack. She has since recovered but has stopped paying rent to Lou because she claims the premises was unsafe for her. The incident has also impacted Jasmine's mental health and loss of clients. There are a couple questions we are faced with: 1. Which classification of tort can the plaintiff (Jasmine) make? 2. Who is the defendant (wrongdoer)? 3. Does the plaintiff qualify for compensatory damages? A tort can be classified in the United States as either intentional, negligent, or strict liability. Let's begin the process of elimination. We can quickly rule-out intentional because neither Dave or Lou willfully placed the snake in the air vent to access Sunshine Yoga. Next, we look at the elements of negligence which is behavior that creates an unreasonable risk of harm to others. In order for the plaintiff to prove negligence, she would have to demonstrate duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages. On one hand we have Dave who had a live snake in his store. We do not
module 7 - tort law 2 know the size of the snake, whether it was venomous or dangerous, but for the sake of this case, let us say the snake was a boa constrictor. While this type of snake is not venomous, it is extremely dangerous and thus should be a duty of its owner, Dave, to be secured. For the snake to have escaped through the air vent, we can establish it was not, which inevitably qualifies as breach of duty. The breach of duty caused the plaintiff to have a heart attack which not only impacted her finances with the hospital, but also took her away from earning income. Before we classify Jasmine's claim as negligence against Dave, let us evaluate the elements of strict liability which is defined as liability without fault. "The law holds an individual liable without fault when the activity of engagement satisfies three conditions: (1) It involves a risk of