ANSWER KEY
Chapter 6 Tort Law and Cybertorts
Opening Case Questions
2. In this negligence case, the plaintiff will have to prove these four elements: the existence duty,
3. The defendant might argue that it had no duty to the plaintiff; that it had met the standard of care;
Questions for Review and Discussion
1. The primary purpose of tort law is to compensate the innocent party by making up for any loss
suffered by that victim. Another objective is to protect potential victims by deterring future torts. In
contrast, criminal law involves a public wrong rather than a private wrong, that is, a wrong that affects
3. Duty is best understood in relation to rights. Legal duties arise because one of the objectives of
the law is to promote justice. Justice demands that people be allowed to enjoy their health, their
property, their reputation, their business relationships, and their privacy without the unjust interference
of others. Since another object of the law is to promote harmony, a duty corresponding to each right
also rises within each member of our society. For instance, because each member of society has a right
4. Under American tort law, the principal intentional torts include assault, battery, false
6. Contributory negligence and comparative negligence both measure the plaintiff’s relative
negligence in relation to the harm suffered by that plaintiff and reduces his or her damages accordingly.
Under contributory negligence, damages are eliminated entirely. Under comparative negligence,
8. Cybertorts are peculiar in that they always involve information. A cybertort involves the invasion,
distortion, theft, falsification, misuse, destruction, or financial exploitation of information stored in or
related to an electronic device including but not limited to desktop PC’s, laptops, mobile phones,
mainframes, phonecams, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablets, wrist computers, and home
10. Survival statutes allow a lawsuit to be brought even if both the plaintiff and the
defendant are deceased. Many states also have survival statutes that preserve the right to bring a
lawsuit for personal injuries. Most states also allow such suits if the tort involves injury to personal
or real property. Survival suits are brought or defended by the lawful representative of the estate
Cases for Analysis
1. Any of the actions directly attributable to decisions made bythe company itself, would make the
strongest negligence case against the marine company. These include such things as (a) the changes
2. Because the students have been asked to compose an e-mail here, answers will vary. However, the
following improvements should be included: (a) the addition of head shields to absorb shock at both the
front and the back of each tank car in case of a collision; (b) the addition of better-quality handles to
3. Because the students have been asked to compose a list on their own, answers will vary.
4. No. The first issue would have been whether the use of the term “informant” was false. The
court appears not to have been concerned about the truth or falsity of the term, “informant.” Rather, the
2. No. There is no expectation of privacy for a license plate number. In fact, the very purpose of a
license plate is to supply information to police officers. The license plate is like an identification badge.
3. Yes. The court concluded that the police officer was employed by both the city and the state
4. Yes. In this landmark case, the U.S. Supreme Court created the actual malice test. In doing so
the Court stated, “Constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public
5. No. Duty is measured by whether the consequences were foreseeable. In this case, the police
officers had no reason to believe that Ralph would drive. In fact, they had been assured by Ralph’s
brother, Eddie, that Eddie would drive and that he would drive Ralph straight home. This can be
8. No. Forest City was not negligent in this case. The court concluded that the “appellee (Forest
City) could not constantly police the area and that ice could have built up even though appellee was not
negligent in its attempt to maintain the property.” To determine if the alleged tortfeasor has met the
9. No. This is a case of comparative negligence. The jury found that the plaintiff had been 40
END CHAPTER SIX