Smart Binary Center Student Coaching Slides 1 Question

Smart Binary Center: Student Coaching Slides 1

Question 1: Negligence • Define • Prima Facie Case – Plaintiff’s Burden • Defenses – Defendant’s Burden 2

Prima Facie Case • • • Conduct Duty Breach of Duty Actual (direct) Cause Proximate (legal) Cause Damage 3

Conduct What Did SBC Do or Fail to Do in This Case? • Affirmative Action • Omission – Failure to Act 4

Duty The Concept of Duty Has Two Parts: • What is the Duty? – Standard of Care: • To Act as a Reasonable Person • Can a Statute set the Standard of Care? (Library Case) • To Whom is the Duty Owed? – Foreseeable Plaintiff – Defendant Owes a Duty to Plaintiffs Who the Defendant can Foresee Will be Injured as a Result of the Defendant’s Conduct. – Can a Statute Identify the Person or Persons to Whom the Defendant Owes a Duty? (Library Case) 5

Breach of Duty • Calculus of the Risk 1) Likelihood of Harm 2) Seriousness of Harm vs. 3) Cost of Prevention and/or 4) Utility of the Activity • Violation of a Statute Is the Violation of a Statute Considered to be a Breach of Duty? (Library Case) 6

Negligence Per Se • Define • Relation to the Prima Facie Case of Negligence – Any Light Shed on This by Library Case(s)? 7

Actual Causation • Plaintiff Must Connect Conduct to the Loss – “But for” Defendant’s Conduct Plaintiff Would not Have Suffered the Loss. • Easy, Difficult, or Impossible Burden in this Case? Why or Why Not? • Any Solution to the Dilemma? (Library Case) 8

Proximate (Legal) Causation • Policy Determination – Should Defendant Really be Responsible for Damages Actually Caused? – Natural and Probable Consequences – Did Plaintiff’s Loss Come About as a Result of a String of Weird Unforeseeable Events? 9

Damages • Damages Suffered in this Case – Compensatory • Define/Purpose – Out of Pocket? – Cost to Reconstruct Lost Files? – Punitive Damages? • Define/Purpose • Intentional Tort vs. Negligence 10

Question 2: Defenses • Contributory Negligence – Complete Bar to Recovery • Library? • Comparative Negligence – Pure vs. Mixed • Library? 11

Question 3: Sample of 600 Past Negligence Cases • Use Normal Approximation to Binomial Distribution • Check Statistics Texts for Formulas • Confidence Interval – Confidence is Probability True Percent is Contained in Interval 12

Question 4: Expected Value • Assume No Punitive Award • Review of Expected Value: – Weighted Average of a Set of Values Where the Weights are the Probabilities of Values – Sum of Probabilities is One, Since All Possible Events Should be Considered – If All the Values are Costs, Expected Value Can be Called Expected Cost 13

Question 5 • The Expected Value Could be Used as the Basis for a Settlement • Ethical Issues? • Strategy? • Question Open Ended 14