Question

It is a crisp and windy fall evening, and they're a lot of dry leaves all around on the ground. You decide to light up your backyard fire pit. Just when you get the fire going really well your best friend calls and invites you out to a party that you really want to attend. You are in a hurry to get to the party, so you don't put out the fire. A few minutes after you leave, a gust of wind blows a spark out of the fire pit, which ignites the leaves and causes a fire that burns your neighbor's house 50 feet away. The fire continues to burn for 1 mile and causes a gas station to explode. The explosion damages a nearby electrical line, which shorts out an electrical substation and to everyone's surprise causes a power failure that causes a supermarket 5 miles away to close for 2 days.

Analyze whether the supermarket can recover against you for negligence. (analyze all of the elements of negligence)

Answer 1

There are four elements of negligence -

Duty:
A duty is simply a legal obligation. In order to be sued for Negligence, the Defendant must have owed a duty to the Plaintiff.

Breach:
A breach is a violation of a law or duty. The Defendant must breach his duty in order to be liable for negligence.

Cause:
The breach of duty must have caused harm to the Plaintiff.

Harm:
The Plaintiff must suffer harm in order to sue for negligence. If he suffers no harm, he cannot sue.

In the aforementioned case, supermarket can recover for negligence as it was mine duty to take care of fire burnt and taking actions for preventing it from spreading. Here breach of care has been committed, as it is the duty to ensure that fire is not spread. In this case breach of duty has caused harm to the supermarket, thus he is eligible to recover for negligence. Plaintiff has suffered a loss of sale due to closure for two days, thus making him eligible to recover