The Pros And Cons Of Negligence

A series of events unfolded when George, running late for class, parked his car on a steep section on Arbutus drive and failed to remember to set the parking brake. The outcome of not remembering to set the parking brake caused many issues resulting in scrapping a Prius, breaking through fencing, people on the train sustaining injuries, and finally a truck that jack-knifed and caused a 42-car pileup. Could the parties that were injured, from George’s actions, be recovered from under the negligence theory? To understand if George is negligent, it is best to look at the legal issue, the required elements of negligence, the definition and explanation of each element of the case, and finally to draw a conclusion to determine if George is negligent.

George failed to comply with the duty of care, causing his car to roll downhill. According to the authors, negligence occurs when someone suffers an injury or damage to property because of a party’s failure to live up to a required duty of care (Mayer, Warner, Siedel, & Lieberman, 2014, p. 161). Negligence is an unintentional tort that the tortfeasor either wishes to bring consequences of the act or thinks that they will occur (Mayer et al,. 2014, p. 161). For George to be liable for negligence, I will explain the following elements.
To succeed in a negligence action, you must prove each of the following. The first element, did George owe the plaintiff a legal duty of care? Legal duty of care paradigm includes that a person acts towards others with attention, prudence, and caution. George owed a duty of care to people by leaving his car in park.
The second element of the negligence is the breach of the duty of due care. By definition, “Any act that fails to meet a standard of the person’s duty of due care toward others” (Mayer et al,. 2014, p. 161). George breaches the duty of care because he did not set the parking brake, which then scraped a Prius that is driving up the road, then crosses the 6th Avenue service drive, breaks through the fencing and smashes into the light rail

The theories in which I base my decision on are res ipsa loquitor and negligence per se. Res ipsa loquitor means that “it creates a presumption that the defendant was negligent because he or she was in exclusive control of the situation and that the plaintiff would not have suffered an Injury”. Negligence per se means “an act of the defendant that violates a statute regulation or ordinance can be used to establish a breach of the duty of due care” (Mayer et al,. 2014, p. 163). Therefore, the injuries of the Prius driver and the people at the train station, I believe that George is at fault of negligence, because of negligence, carelessness and is foreseeable. Now as for the sparks from the wiring caught that lead to the other chain of events. I feel that George should not be held accountable for negligence, because it was unforeseeable. He could not prevent that it can cause a barn to explode and setting forth a series of