Love. Negligent Tort - Coursework Example

NEGLIGENT TORT 16 February NEGLIGENT TORT The term tort refers to wrongful acts, leading to legal damage, committed by one party to another. It falls under the scope of civil law with the foundation that every individual owes other people a duty of care. Negligence is a form of tort. This paper seeks to discuss concepts of negligent tort. The paper will discuss the elements of negligent tort and the available remedies for the tort.Elements of negligent tortNegligent tort is characterized by breach of a person’s duty of care, to others, and a subsequent legal injury caused by the breach.

There exist four basic elements in the definition of negligent tort. There must have been a duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, the duty of care must have been breached, the breach must have resulted into a loss, and the immediate loss must have been attributable to the actions of the defendant (Miller and Gentz, 2009). Duty of careDuty of care refers to a person’s obligation to refrain from causing harm to other members of the society and from infringing other people’s rights.

The principle of duty of care therefore establishes fundamentals of peaceful coexistence in the society. The measure of degree of duty of care in the law of negligent tort is measured by the standard of a normally rational person. Further, determination of the duty of care relies on the capacity of the defendant. There are however certain exemptions to a person’s duty of care to other parties. Foreseeable risks and contributory negligence for instance reduces a defendant’s liability to exercise a duty of care to another person (Miller and Gentz, 2009).

Breach of duty of care and legal injuryNegligent tort is further defined by failure to exercise a person’s duty of care to others. The breach of duty of care is also defined by normal standards of the defendant and the environment. A professional medical practitioner is for example more liable for breach of duty of care to a patient than an ordinary citizen under the same conditions is. The breach of duty of care must subsequently be supported by a resultant legal damage. The term legal damage means that the injury that is suffered by the plaintiff must be actionable before a legal system.

This is because some losses may not be legally recognized (Miller and Gentz, 2009). Proximate causationThe final element of a negligent tort is the proximate causation. This element defines the relationship between the damage suffered and the actions of the defendant. Negligent tort can only be instituted if the damage suffered by the plaintiff is attributable to the defendant’s breach of duty of care (Ramlogan, Persadie and Narinesingh, 2010).Types of remediesThe major and most common remedy to negligent tort are damages and specific performance.

This refers to monetary compensation that the defendant is charged to pay to the plaintiff for the losses caused by the defendant’s negligence. Injunction, an order to stop a continuous act, is also a remedy to negligence. This particularly applies in cases where the defendant actions or omissions are continuous over a period (Ramlogan, Persadie and Narinesingh, 2010). ReferencesMiller, R., and Gentz, G. (2009). Fundamentals of Business Law: Excerpted Cases. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning Ramlogan, R.

, Persadie, N., and Narinesingh, M. (2010). Commonwealth Caribbean Business Law. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis