TORTS

Byrne v. Boadle

o Rule: When res ipsa applies, the accident is prima facie evidence of negligence and it is for the defendant to prove that negligence did not occur. The jury can infer negligence.

· McDougald v. Perry

o Rule: Looking at type of accident through common experience and general knowledge, it would not occur but for the failure to exercise reasonable care by the person who had control of the spare tire. Plaintiff does not have to eliminate all causes, even non-negligent causes.

Larson v. St. Francis Hotel

o Rule: Plaintiff must show that defendant had exclusive control of instrument that caused the accident - here a third party was present. At a hotel, guests have at least partial control - res ipsa does not apply.

· Ybarra v. Spangard (narrow application only in medical field)

o Rule: Res ipsa may be applied because it would be unreasonable to require the plaintiff to identify the negligent defendant, insofar as he was unconscious for the operation. The multiple defendants, combined, have a duty to care for the patient and each can rebut.

· Sullivan v. Crabtree

Effect of res ipsa: warrants an inference of negligence; it raises a presumption of negligence; or it not only raises such a presumption but also shifts the ultimate burden of proof to defendant

· Perkins v. Texas & New Orleans Ry. Co.

Rule: Negligence is a cause in fact of the harm to another if it was a substantial factor in bringing about that harm, but need not be the sole cause.

· Hill v. Edmonds

o Rule: Where separate acts of negligence combine to produce directly a single injury, each tortfeasor is responsible for the entire result, even though his act alone might not have caused it. (departure from "but for" test)

· Anderson v. Minneapolis, St. P. & S. St. M. Ry. Co.

o Rule: where each of the two events would have been sufficient by itself to bring about the harm, the test for each event is often said to be whether it was a "substantial factor" in bringing about the harm, making it a cause in fact even though the "but for" test doesn't work.

· Reynolds v. Texas & Pacific Ry. Co.

o Rule: Where negligence of the D greatly multiplies the chances of accident to the plaintiff, and is of a character naturally leading to its occurrence, the mere possibility that it might have happened without the negligence is not sufficient to break the chain of cause and effect between the negligence and the injury.

· Gentry v. Douglas Hereford Ranch

o Rule: A suspicion, regardless of how particularized it may be, is not sufficient to sustain an action or defeat a motion for summary judgment.

· Kramer Service, v. Wilkins

o Rule: Coexistence of injuries is not the same as negligent conduct causing the injury; P must show that D’s negligent conduct more likely than not caused harm; requires not just possibility, but high probability; Expert testimony may be presented where layperson does not have knowledge/expertise

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm

o Rule: Even if scientific method is sound, scientific evidence cannot be introduced if it cannot prove valid scientific connection under inquiry or establish causation in fact.

· Herskovitz v. Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound

o Rule: In cases involving loss of chance, P must demonstrate that P would have lived longer “but for” D’ negligent act or omission. (and not that P would have lived but for D’s negligent act). P can recover only for direct items of damage due to premature death such as loss of earnings and medical expenses.

· Summers v. Tice

o Rule: The defendants brought about a situation where the negligence of one of them injured the plaintiff and it is up to each to absolve himself if he can. Bottom line, plaintiff must establish causation but if actual actor not known, both D's have to try to absolve themselves.

· Sindell v. Abbott Labs

o Rule: If plaintiff cannot prove which of three or more persons caused her injury, but can show all were negligent or produced a defected product, the court may cast upon each defendant the burden of proving that he did not cause the injury. If unable to prove that he did not cause the injury, the court may well require him to pay that percentage of the plaintiff's injuries which the defendant's sales of the product bore to the total market sales.

· Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Daniels

o Rule: PC sets limits on general causation (causation in fact); these limits are “arbitrary” and courts use terms “proximate” or “natural” in setting limits.

· Ryan v. New York Central R.R. Co.

o Rule: Every person is liable for the consequences of his own acts. He is thus liable in damages for the proximate results of his own acts, but not for remote damages. D liable for "a natural and expected result" of initial/first negligent act and immediate damages and not for remote damages

In Re Polemis

o Rule: If the act would or might cause damage, the fact that the damage caused is not the exact kind of damage one would expect is immaterial, so long as the damage is in fact directly traceable to the negligent act, and not due to the operation of independent causes having no connection with the negligent act. Not anticipating it isn't a defense.

· Wagon Mound No. 1

o Rule: Can't be held liable for unforeseeable consequences, even if direct cause. Unless exact damage can be foreseen,not just some damage, then not liable.

· Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co.

o Rule: If defendant's conduct does not involve an unreasonable risk of harm to the plaintiff, and damage to her was not foreseeable, the fact that the conduct was unjustifiably risky to someone else is irrelevant. “Proximate cause extends liability to those whose conduct harms persons within the zone of the ‘reasonably foreseeable’ plaintiff.

· Bartolone v. Jeckovich:

o Rule: Defendant must take a plaintiff as he finds him and hence may be liable in damages for aggravation of a pre-existing illness. D is liable for all consequences, whether foreseen or not, of a physical injury; including aggravating preexisting conditions.

· Wagon Mound No. 2.

o Rule: as long as the actual harm to the plaintiff was remotely foreseeable, there is liability even though these consequences were highly unlikely. If risk elimination was not expensive then defendant is not liable.

· Yun v. Ford Motor Co.

o Rule: Whether the consequences of the negligent act are reasonable foreseeable (and thus do not interrupt causation) or highly extraordinary (thereby breaking the chain of causation) is usually a question for the jury, but may be decided as a matter of law in extreme circumstances.”

· Derdiarian v. Felix Contracting Corp.

o Rule: An intervening act may not serve as a superseding cause, and relieve an actor of responsibility, where the risk of the intervening act occurring is the very same risk which renders the actor negligent.

· Watson v. Kentucky & Indian Bridge & RR Co.

o Rule: a third person's criminal conduct may be sufficiently foreseeable that, even though it is clearly an intervening act, it will not be a superseding one. This is also true of intentionally tortious acts by third persons, the risk of which the defendant could have foreseen.

· McCoy v. American Suzuki Motor Corp.

o Rule: To achieve rescuer status one must demonstrate: (1) the defendant was negligent to the person rescued and such negligence caused the peril or appearance of peril to the person rescued; (2) the peril or appearance of peril was imminent; (3) a reasonably prudent person would have concluded such peril or appearance of peril existed (in the shoes); and (4) the rescuer acted with reasonable care in effectuating the rescue.

· Fuller v. Preis

o Rule: if plaintiff was sane at the time he committed suicide, the courts unanimously hold that the suicide was a superseding cause, and the defendant has no liability. If the injury drives the plaintiff insane, and the suicide is the product of this insanity, recovery is usually allowed. Usually must be an irresistible impulse to commit suicide

· Kelly v. Gwinnell

o Rule: When negligent conduct creates such a risk, setting off foreseeable consequences that lead to unreasonable risk and plaintiff's injury, the conduct is deemed the proximate cause of the injury.

· Enright v. Eli Lilly

o Rule: A child has no cause of action for pre-conception torts committed against the mother. Public policy requires that proximate cause cuts off liability for harm to the children of those who were injured in utero.

· Bierczynski v. Rogers

o Rule: Each participant is liable for harm to a third person arising from the tortious act of the other, because he has induced and encouraged the tort - acting in concert.

· Bartlett v. New Mexico Welding Supply

o Rule: The enactment of comparative negligence means that the doctrine of joint and several liability should be abandoned.

Bruckman v. Pena

Rule:

burden of proof is upon the plaintiff to establish that the damages he seeks were proximately caused by the negligence of the defendant.

Miche v. Great Lakes Steel

Rule: Where the independent concurring acts have caused distinct and separate injures to the plaintiff, or where some reasonable means of apportioning the damages is evident, the courts generally will not hold the tortfeasors jointly and severally liable.

Dillon v. Twin State Gas and Electric

Rule:

Jury must make determination of injury plaintiff would have suffered despite the ultimate cause of death and use that as a benchmark for apportioning damages. If death was probable then no liability, but if serious injury is probable, the loss of life or earning capacity resulting from the injury would be measured by its value in such injured condition.

· Winterbottom v. Wright

o Rule: when no privity, he only safe rule is to confine the right to recover to those who enter into the contract: if we go beoynd that, there is no foreseeable end to people who might bring cases.

· MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.

o Rule: If a product is reasonably expected to be dangerous if negligently made and the product is known to be used by those other than the original purchaser in the normal course of business, a duty of care exists. If to the element of danger there is added knowledge, that the thing will be used by people other than the purchaser without further tests, then irrespective of contract, the manufacturer of this thing of danger is under a duty to make it carefully.

HR Moch Co. v. Rensselaier Water Co.

Rule:

A defendant’s failure to act is not actionable under tort law unless the defendant has a duty to act as to the plaintiff. If the privity of contract existed between the X and D, not P and D, generally no duty – especially when too many potential plaintiffs.

Clagett v. Dacy

Rule:

The duties or obligation inherent in an attorney-client relationship will not be presumed to flow to a third party and will not be presumed to arise by implication when the effect of such a presumption would be tantamount to a prohibited or improbable employment.

Hegel v. Langsam

Rule:

at some point the law presumed people to have sufficient maturity to conduct their own personal affairs and not hold others responsible.

LS Ayres and Co. v. Hicks

Rule:

May be legal obligation to take positive or affirmative steps to rescue the person who is helpless of in a situation of peril, when the one proceeded against is a master or invitor, or when the injury resulted from use of an instrumentality under the control of the defendant.

Tarasoff v. Regents

Rule:

once a therapist determines, or should have determined, that a patient poses a serious danger of violence to others, he bears a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect the foreseeable victim of that danger.

JS and MS v. RTH

Rule: when a spouse has knowledge or special reason to know of the likelihood of his or her spouse engaging in sexual abuse, a spouse has a duty of care to take reasonable steps to prevent or warn of the harm.

Louisiana Ex. Rel. Guste v. M/V Testbank

Rule:

· Taylor v. Olsen

o Rule: the landowner must exercise a reasonable degree of care to prevent an unreasonable risk of harm. The factors of location, use of property, and customary practice were to be weighed in gauging reasonableness.

· Salevan v. Wilmington Park

o Rule: The public has a right to the free and unmolested use of public area and that the owner was required to take reasonable precautions to guard against injuries.

· Sheehan v. St. Paul & Duluth Ry. Co.

o Rule: The railroad company has the right to a free track in such places; that it is not bound to any act or service in anticipation of trespassers thereon; and that the trespasser who ventures upon a track for any purpose of his own assumes all risks of the conditions which may be found there, including the operation of engines and cars.

· Barmore v. Elmore

o Rule: when P was merely a licensee, D has no duty to use reasonable care to keep the premises safe for him, but merely a duty to warn him of dangers known to D.

· Campbell v. Weathers

o Rule: An invitee is one who is either expressly or impliedly invited onto the premises of another in connection with the business carried on by that other. If one goes into a store with a view of then, or in the future, doing some business with the store, he is an invitee to whom defendant owes a duty of care.

· Whelan v. Van Natta

o Rule: An invitee ceases to be an invitee after the expiration of a reasonable time within which to accomplish the purpose for which he is invited to enter, or to remain. Whether at the expiration of that time he becomes a trespasser or a licensee will depend upon whether the possessor does or does not consent to his remaining on the land.

· Rowland v. Christian

o Rule: The plaintiff's status as trespasser, licensee, or invitee will not be dispositive as to the duty of care owed to him – reasonable person instead.

Pagelsdorf v. Safeco Ins

o Rule: Landlord owes ordinary care to his tenant and to others on the premises with permission.

Kline v. 1500 Mass. Ave. Apt. Corp

Rule: the duty is the landlord's because by his control of the area of common use and common danger he is the only party who has the power to make the necessary repairs or to provide the necessary protection.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. V. Campbell (2003)

· Rule: Three guideposts when reviewing punitive damages: (1) degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's misconduct; (2) disparity between actual or potential harm suffered by plaintiff and the punitive damages; (3) the difference between the punitive damages and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases.

· Bundt v. Embro

o Rule: The defense of discharge and satisfaction provides that multiple judgments cannot be satisfied against multiple defendants for the same tort. There can only be one satisfaction.

Cox v. Pearl Investment

· Rule: The court held that where a contract had the effect of releasing one joint tortfeasor while reserving the right to sue the others, who could be liable, it should not be treated otherwise.

Elbaor v. Smith

Rule: Mary Carter agreements are agreements where a plaintiff enters into a settlement agreement with one defendant and goes to trial against the remaining defendants. The settling defendant remains a party and guarantees the plaintiff a minimum payment, which may later be offset by an excess judgment recovered at trial. Although allowing for partial settlement, Mary Carter agreements nearly always ensure a trial will occur.

Knell v. Feltman

· Rule: As long as concurrent tortfeasors are not intentional wrongdoers, contribution will be enforced regardless of whether or not a joint judgment is entered against them. Contribution is the defendant's right and can't be made subject to plaintiff bringing an action.

Yellow Cab Co. of DC v. Dreslin

· Rule: In order to receive contribution, joint liability must be present. Non-immune tortfeasors cannot collect contribution from immune tortfeasors.

Slocum v. Donahue

· Rule: Indemnification is only allowed when the defendant is vicariously or derivatively liable for the wrongful act of another. Contribution is not allowed under this statute when a settlement agreement is reached in good faith. The right to indemnity allows someone without fault who is compelled by law to defend himself to recover from the wrongdoer the entire amount of loss.

· Butterfield v. Forrester

o Rule: If a plaintiff’s conduct falls below the standard established by law for the protection of self against an unreasonable risk of harm, that plaintiff is contributory negligent and cannot recover for personal injuries caused by a resulting accident.

Davies v. Mann

· Rule: If the defendant had an opportunity to avoid the accident after the plaintiff no longer had such an opportunity, and defendant improperly did not avoid accident, he is liable despite plaintiff's contributory negligence. Last clear chance doctrine - defendant's failure to exercise last opportunity to avoid the harm acts as a superseding cause, preventing the plaintiff's negligence from being the proximate cause of the accident.

McIntytre v. Balentine

· Rule: Move from contributory to comparative negligence. The plaintiff's negligent conduct reduces the amount of the plaintiff's damages; it does not always completely bar recovery.

Li v. Yellow Cab

Pure comparative negligence system should be applied. In a "pure" system, the plaintiff is allowed to recover even if his fault is greater than the defendant's. In a 50% system, the plaintiff’s recovery is allowed only if his negligence is either less than, or no greater than, the defendant's.

Seigneur v. National Fitness Institute

· Rule: Plaintiff's assumption of the risk injury through a pre-injury release from liability will be enforced if the injury is within the scope of the terms of the release and the release is not in violation of public policy.

Rush v. Commercial Realty

· Rule: Implied assumption of the risk is applicable only when a plaintiff voluntarily encounters a known risk.

· Blackburn v. Dorta

Holding:

Teeters v. Currey

· Rule: Where medical malpractice is asserted to have occurred through the negligent performance of surgical procedures, the cause of action accrues and the statute of limitations begins to run when the patient discovers, or in the exercise of reasonable care and diligence for his own health and welfare, should have discovered the resulting injury, not the time of injury itself.

Freehe v. Freehe

· Holding: The court expressly overruled the doctrine of interspousal tort immunity.

Zellmer v. Zellmer

· Holding: Generally, immunity in parent/child relationship. Stepparents who were obligated to support stepchildren under the family support statute were protected by the immunity doctrine to the same extent as legal parents if in loco parentis status - generally living with the child and financially providing for the child.

Abernathy v. Sisters of St. Mary's

· Holding: Under the implied waiver theory, a person who accepts the benefit of a charity impliedly agrees not to assert any actions against the charity. However, this theory cannot be applied equally to all persons, especially considering that those admitted to a charitable hospital may be unconscious or under the age of consent. Most states don't give immunity to charitable organizations anymore.

Clarke v. Oregon Health Sciences University

· Rule: State can limit or modify remedies, but cannot deny a remedy.

Riss v. City of New York:

· Rule: City has no duty to provide police protection to any particular member of the public. If such duty were recognized, and enforced by the courts, this would "inevitably determine how the limited police resources of the community should be allocated and without predictable limits. There is no duty imposed on the police that can be enforced through the tort system to protect citizens from crime.

DeLong v. Erie County

· Rule: When a municipality voluntarily assumes a duty and negligently performs the duty, the municipality may be held liable if its conduct somehow increased the risk to defendant. Tort liability against a municipal governmental unit for negligent conduct may be imposed where the governmental unit negligently provided the service and the plaintiff had relied on the government's assurances

Deuser v. Vecera

· Rule: The discretionary function exception to the FTCA disallows civil suit against the United States when the conduct complained of was based upon the exercise of a discretionary function or duty.

Bussard v. Minimed

· Rule: the going-and-coming exception to the doctrine of respondeat superior did not apply because her decision was a fortuity that must not obscure the driver's central claim that the employee's job had contributed to the accident.

O'Shea v. Welch

· Rule: An employee is acting within the scope of his employment is performing services for which he has been employed, or when he is doing anything which is reasonably incidental to his employment. The test is not necessarily whether this specific conduct was expressly authorized or forbidden by the employer, but whether such conduct should have been fairly foreseen from the nature of the employment and the duties relating to it.

Murrell v. Goertz

· Rule: An independent contractor is one who engaged to perform a certain service for another with the right to control the physical details of the work. One who arranges work for independent contractor is not vicariously liable.

Maloney v. Rath

· Rule: one who carries on an activity which threatens a grave risk of serious bodily harm or death unless the instrumentalities used are carefully maintained, and who employs an independent contractor to maintain such instrumentalities, is subject to the same liability for physical harm caused by the negligence of the contractor in maintaining such instrumentalities as though the employer had himself done the work of the maintenance.

Clark v. Southview Hosp.

A hospital may be held liable under this doctrine for the negligence of independent medical practitioners practicing in the hospital if it holds itself out to the public as a provider of medical services and in the absence of notice or knowledge to the contrary, the patient looks to the hospital, as opposed to the individual practitioner, to provide competent medical care.

Popejoy v. Steinle

· Rule of Joint venture: (1) an agreement, express or implied, among the members of the group; (2) a common purpose to be carried out by the group; (3) a community of pecuniary interest in that purpose, among the members; and (4) an equal right to voice in the direction of the enterprise, which gives an equal right to control . Must by commercial and profit motive aspects of the community of pecuniary interest element - must be some business purpose involved.

Malchose v. Kalfell

· Family car doctrine: places liability on the owner of a vehicle for negligent operation by a person using the vehicle with the express or implied consent of the owner for purposes of the business or pleasure of the owner's family. The owner is vicariously liable for the tortious acts of the driver.

· Smalich v. Westfall

o Rule: a passenger, even if he owns the car, generally has no ability to control the moment-to-moment carefulness of the driver, and should not be burdened with responsibility for the latter's negligence. Only a master-servant or joint enterprise relationship should justify the imputation of contributory negligence on a car passenger.

· Rylands v. Fletcher.

o Rule: A person who for his own purposes brings on his lands and collects and keeps there anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, must keep it in at his peril, and, if he does not do so, is prima facie answerable for all the damage which is the natural consequence of its escape.

· Miller v. Civil Constructors

o Rule: applies Restatement section 520.

· Indiana Harbor Belt RR v. American Cyanamid

o Rule: The transportation of hazardous chemicals through a densely populated urban area is not one to which it is appropriate to apply strict liability. Strict liability gives incentives to change behavior.

· Foster v. Preston Mill Co.

o Rule: Under strict liability, plaintiffs may recover only for the type of harm that makes the activity ultrahazardous (or abnormally dangerous).

· Golden v. Amory

o Rule: Rylands v. Fletcher rule does not apply where the injury results from the Act of God which the owner had no reason to anticipate.

· Sandy v. Bushey

o Rule: Ordinary contributory negligence by the plaintiff will usually not bar her from strict liability recovery. But if the plaintiff knowingly, voluntarily and unreasonably subject herself to the danger, this will be a defense even to strict liability. If strict liability, can look for assumption of risk, but not contributory negligence.

MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.

· Rule: If a product is reasonably expected to be dangerous if negligently made and the product is known to be used by those other than the original purchaser in the normal course of business, a duty of care exists and no privity is required.

Baxter v. Ford Motors

· Rule: Representations set forth by a manufacturer whose falsehood cannot be readily detected by a buyer may be relied on by the buyer regardless of an absence of privity of contract. Express warranty requires promise and reasonable reliance.

Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors.

· Rule: Manufacturers cannot unjustly disclaim the implied warranty of merchantability when such disclaimers are clearly not the result of just bargaining. Must weigh social policy, the prior decisions of the court, the mass production methods of manufacture and distribution, and the bargaining position of the consumer.

Greenman v. Yuba Power Products

Rule: Individuals injured by products with design or manufacturing defects may bring suit under strict liability regardless of a failure to give timely notice to the manufacturer for a breach of warranty.

Rix v. GMC

· Rule: A manufacturer cannot be held strictly liable for the danger caused by one of its products, if it does not cause the defect in the product.

Prentis v. Yale Mfg. Co.

Rule: In an action against the manufacturer of a product based upon an alleged design defect, breach of implied warranty and negligence require proof of the same elements and use of identical evidence. Four approaches have been popularized in determining a defect in product design cases.

O'Brien v. Mushkin Corp.

Rule:

Anderson v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas

Rule: Knowledge or knowability is a component of strict liability for failure to warn. The rules of strict liability require a plaintiff to prove only that the defendant did not adequately warn of a particular risk that was known or knowable in light of the generally recognized and prevailing best scientific and medical knowledge available at the time of manufacturer and distribution.

Friedman v. General Motors Corp.

Rule:

Plaintiffs may prove a manufacturing defect through the use of circumstantial evidence, so long as a preponderance of the evidence establishes that the accident was caused by the defect rather than other possibilities. For Plaintiff to prevail, they must prove that the car manufactured by Defendant was defective, that the defect existed when the car left the factory and that the defect was the proximate cause of the injuries.

Daly v. General Motors Corp.

Rule:

The principle of comparative negligence can be applied in strict products liability cases to reduce a plaintiff’s recovery. If found to have assumed the risk, the plaintiff is barred from recovery completely.

Ford Motor Co. v. Matthews

Rule:

Riegel v. Medtonic

Rule:

Implied preemption

Wyeth v. Levine

The defendant must demonstrate that it was impossible for it to comply with both federal and state requirements to get preemption defense.

Peterson v. Lou Bachrodt Chevrolet

· Rule: Strict products liability will not be applied to the seller of previously used products. Strict liability is not applicable to those who sell used products where there is no showing that the defect at the time the product left the manufacturer's control or that the defect was created by the used product seller. No justification in effectively causing used product dealers to become the insurers against defects.

Hector v. Cedars-Sinai Medical

· Rule: Hospitals are not subject to strict liability for a defective product provided to a patient during treatment when the hospital is a provider of services rather than a seller of a product.

Belli v. Orlando Daily Newspapers, Inc.

Rule:

If the meaning of an article is capable of two interpretations, one being defamatory and the other not, it is for the jury to determine the meaning of the article based on all of the evidence.

Grant v. Reader's Digest Ass'n

Rule:

It is not necessary that the majority of people would find an article to be damaging to Plaintiff’s reputation so long as some people would reasonably find in damaging - doesn't have to be right-thinking or wrong-thinking people. Backlash from minority of people still defamatory.

Kilian v. Doubleday & Co.

Rule:

Specific charges cannot be defended through a claim of truth by a showing of Plaintiff’s general bad character.

Neiman-Marcus v. Lait

Rule:

One who publishes defamatory matter concerning a group or class of persons is subject to liability to an individual member of it if, but only if, (a) the group or class is so small that the matter can reasonably be understood to refer to the member, or (b) the circumstances of publication reasonably give rise to the conclusion that there is particular reference to the member. Numerical approach to group libel: usually less than 25 in group

Bindrim v. Mitchell

Rule:

The issue of whether or not a character is a representation of the Plaintiff in question is if a reader with knowledge of the surrounding circumstances could reasonably understand that the words referred to the plaintiff.

Shore v. Billingsley

Rule

: Defamation broadcast on the radio is actionable as either libel or slander, regardless of whether it is read from a script or ad-libbed. Defamation by readio is libel per se.

Terwilliger v. Wands

Rule: Special damages must be claimed in a slander suit that is not slander per se. Only pecuniary injuries affecting one’s character will suffice. If the slanderous statement is not actionable per se (facially damaging to the plaintff), it is necessary that the plaintiff should allege that some particular damage has happened. In addition, the statement must be disparaging to the character of the plaintiff, and the special damage must flow from the damage to character.

Economopouls v. AG Pollard Co.

Rule:

Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc.

· Rule: A commercial internet dating service is immune from liability under 47 USC 230(c)(1) for a personal profile of plaintiff posted by imposter. The internet matchmaker was not an information content provider because none of its matchmaking profiles had any content until a user actively created it.

Ogden v. Association of the US Army

Rule:

Under the single publication rule, written material containing defamatory matter gives rise to only one cause of action for libel. This cause accrues at the time of the original publication, and the statute of limitation runs from that date.

NY Times v. Sullivan

Rule: The Constitution prohibits public officials from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to their official conduct unless they prove that the statement was made with actual malice. Actual malice is when the speaker had knowledge the statement was false or acts with a reckless disregard to whether it was false or not.

St. Amant v. Thompson

Rule:

TORTS

Law 111 with B at Chapman University

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