Tort Case Study Of Tot

Tort, is a critical subject of study when analyzing common law jurisdictions. Tort, latin word for wrong, is the action of causing harm or loss to another person or party [1]. When there is an act of tort, the person who has committed the tortious act is called the tortfeasor while the person who suffered harm or loss from such act is called the injured party or the victim. Despite crimes may be torts, torts may not be crimes [1] simply because a tort may not have broken a law so it does not amount to criminal offense. In fact, one must understand that the main idea of tort is not to punish the perpetrator but rather to compensate the people who suffered from the act [1].

There are three elements when determining whether an act is tortious

is vicarious liability. Vicarious liability essentially is when someone is held responsible for the tortious act of another person, typically seen in the workplace where an employer is generally held responsible for his/her employee’s action during their course of employment [3]. In the case study, this liability is evident as an employee of Acme Underground did not fully test the conditions of the sub-surface [6]. This indicates a vicarious liability may be possible because the employee was simply following order to conduct test for sub-surface conditions of the bridge site. In fact, Dutton V. Bognor Regis United Building Co. Ltd. case in 1972 [5] can effectively show such liability is indeed present in the case study. Summarizing the precedent case, a house was built on a rubbish deposit which requires larger foundation [5]. The foundation must be approved by an inspector by law, however, the inspector failed to properly inspect the foundation and part of the building collapsed [5]. The final verdict of this case was that the building inspector and the building authority are both liable [5]. This case clearly indicates that although the higher up was not directly related to the incident, he/she may still be responsible for the employee’s mistake which is a matching circumstance to the facts given in the case study. Thus, the employee of Acme Underground may have made a mistake in his work, but since it is in the

may face is economic loss. This is because Acme Underground Ltd. owes a duty of care to provide correct report of the sub-surface conditions to Mr.Sharp and the Municipality. Yet, they breach such duty when Subsurface Wizard determined that Acme Underground has made a significant error by not fully testing the soil. This caused the Municipality 350 thousand dollars extra to build the revised design [6]. However, this is not possible for the Municipality to pay because they stated to Mr.Sharp that it is not economically feasible for them to build the bridge if it costed more than 1.8 million dollars [6]. Since the Municipality contracted ABC Construction, they cannot breach the contract to stop the construction either. The 1982 precedent case, Junior Books Ltd. v. Veitchi Co. Ltd. [5], displays another example of how someone’s negligence can cause economic damages. In the precedent case, a negligently laid floor, not dangerous, caused the plaintiff to suffer numerous losses such as replacing the floor and business disturbance [4]. The defendant was later found liable and must pay the plaintiff for the profit loss of the time [4]. It is evident from this case that one can be found liable because of his/her negligent act. This is clearly displayed by Acme Underground as their negligence with the sub-surface conditions report caused the Municipality to suffer an economic loss. Therefore, Acme Underground Ltd. is highly