Law of Torts — Practice

Question 1

Principle: Damnum sine injuria — actual loss without the violation of a legal right is not actionable.
Facts: A new grocery store lawfully opens next to B's shop and draws away many of B's customers, causing B a serious drop in income.
Can B claim damages?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 2

Principle: Injuria sine damno — the violation of a legal right is actionable even if no actual loss results.
Facts: A returning officer wrongfully refuses to accept X's valid vote. The candidate X wanted to vote for wins the election anyway.
Can X sue?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 3

Principle: A person is liable in negligence only if he breached a duty of reasonable care and that breach caused the harm.
Facts: D drives within the speed limit, keeping a proper lookout. A child suddenly darts onto the road from behind a parked truck and D, despite braking at once, cannot avoid hitting him.
Is D liable in negligence?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 4

Principle: Res ipsa loquitur — where an accident is of a kind that does not ordinarily happen without negligence, negligence is presumed and the defendant must disprove it.
Facts: After an operation, a pair of surgical scissors is found left inside the patient's body.
What follows?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 5

Principle: Trespass to land — unlawful entry onto another's land — is actionable per se, that is, without any proof of damage.
Facts: A walks across B's fenced field as a shortcut, being careful to damage nothing.
Is A liable for trespass?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 6

Principle: Assault is an act that causes a reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful contact; battery is the actual application of unlawful force.
Facts: In anger, X raises his fist and lunges at Y as if to strike him, but stops just short and never touches Y, who flinches in fear.
Which wrong, if any, has X committed?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 7

Principle: An enterprise engaged in a hazardous or inherently dangerous activity is absolutely liable for any harm resulting from an escape of the dangerous thing, and no exception (including act of God) is available.
Facts: A factory storing highly toxic gas suffers a leak triggered by an unusually severe earthquake, injuring nearby residents.
Is the factory liable?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 8

Principle: Under the rule in Rylands v Fletcher, a person who keeps a dangerous thing on his land is strictly liable if it escapes and causes harm — but the act of a stranger over whom he has no control is a valid defence.
Facts: D lawfully keeps a large water reservoir on his land. A trespassing stranger secretly sabotages the outlet at night; the reservoir bursts and floods a neighbour's farm.
Is D liable?

Accepted Answer

B

Question 9

Principle: An employer is vicariously liable for a servant's tort only if it was committed in the course of employment; a substantial personal detour ('a frolic of his own') falls outside it.
Facts: A company driver, instead of taking the delivery route, drives 30 km the opposite way to visit a friend and, on that personal detour, negligently injures a pedestrian.
Is the employer liable?

Accepted Answer

B

Practice — Law of Torts

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