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Acme Electronics: Student Coaching Slides

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Question 1: Negligence

• Define

• Prima Facie Case – Plaintiff’s Burden

• Defenses – Defendant’s Burden

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Prima Facie Case

• Conduct

• Duty

• Breach of Duty

• Actual (direct) Cause

• Proximate (legal) Cause

• Damage

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Conduct

What Did Acme Do or Fail to Do in This Case?

• Affirmative Action

• Omission – Failure to Act

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Duty

The Concept of Duty Has Two Parts:

• What is the Duty?

– Standard of Care:

• To Act as a Reasonable Person• Can a Statute set the Standard of Care? (Library Case)

• To Whom is the Duty Owed?

– Foreseeable Plaintiff – Defendant Owes a Duty to Plaintiffs Who the Defendant can Foresee Will be Injured as a Result of the Defendant’s Conduct.

– Can a Statute Identify the Person or Persons to Whom the Defendant Owes a Duty? (Library Case)

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Breach of Duty

• Calculus of the Risk1) Likelihood of Harm

2) Seriousness of Harm

vs.

3) Cost of Prevention and/or

4) Utility of the Activity

• Violation of a StatuteIs the Violation of a Statute Considered to be a

Breach of Duty? (Library Case)

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Negligence Per Se

• Define

• Relation to the Prima Facie Case of Negligence

– Any Light Shed on This by Library Case(s)?

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Actual Causation

• Plaintiff Must Connect Conduct to the Loss

– “But for” Defendant’s Conduct Plaintiff Would not Have Suffered the Loss.

• Easy, Difficult, or Impossible Burden in this Case?Why or Why Not?

• Any Solution to the Dilemma? (Library Case)

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Proximate (Legal)Causation

• Policy Determination

– Should Defendant Really be Responsible for Damages Actually Caused?

– Natural and Probable Consequences

– Did Plaintiff’s Loss Come About as a Result of a String of Weird Unforeseeable Events?

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Damages

• Damages Suffered in this Case– Compensatory

• Define/Purpose– Out of Pocket?– Cost to Reconstruct Lost Files?

– Punitive Damages?• Define/Purpose• Intentional Tort vs. Negligence

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Question 2: Defenses

• Contributory Negligence– Complete Bar to Recovery

• Library?

• Comparative Negligence– Pure vs. Mixed

• Library?

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Question 3: Sample of600 Past Negligence Cases

• Use Normal Approximation to Binomial Distribution

• Check Statistics Texts for Formulas

• Confidence Interval – Confidence is Probability True Percent is Contained in Interval

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Question 4:Expected Value

• Assume No Punitive Award

• Review of Expected Value:– Weighted Average of a Set of Values Where the

Weights are the Probabilities of Values

– Sum of Probabilities is One, Since All Possible Events Should be Considered

– If All the Values are Costs, Expected Value Can be Called Expected Cost

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Question 5

• The Expected Value Could be Used as the Basis for a Settlement

• Ethical Issues?

• Strategy?

• Question Open Ended