Business Law: Negligence and Torts addresses two important questions: When is someone else legally responsible for harm done to you? and When are you legally responsible for harm done to someone else? Former attorney and Professor Frank B. Cross takes you inside the intricate world of torts: the body of law designed to redress through civil litigation harms done to persons. These eight lectures not only explain the basics of this substantive body of law but give insight through examples of how the law is based on a logical idea of a just outcome.
Business Law: Negligence and Torts
Take a look inside the intricate world of torts—the body of law designed to redress through civil litigation harms done to persons.
Overview Course No. 562
About
Professor Frank B. Cross is Professor in the Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management at The University of Texas at Austin and a former attorney with the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C. He earned his B.A. from the University of Kansas and his J.D. from Harvard Law School. At Texas, Professor Cross has taught undergraduate classes, MBA classes, and executive-education courses in aspects of the legal environment in business. He has been honored as the nation's outstanding professor by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. He was recognized as a top teacher by the Business Week guide to MBA programs. Professor Cross has authored many publications, including more than 30 articles in journals of law, science, policy, and management. He has published four textbooks for business law classes, as well as several other academic books. Professor Cross serves on the editorial boards of four journals, including the American Business Journal.
01: Foundations of Torts and Negligence Introduction
Tort law is a body of common law designed to compensate persons injured in civil, as opposed to criminal, wrongs. The duties and behaviors of the hypothetical "reasonable person," as interpreted during centuries of litigation, have come to form this practical and highly developed body of law. They can be broken down into the broad categories of intentional harms, negligence, and certain cases in which strict liability for actions applies.
48 min
02: Negligence (continued)
This lecture continues the discussion of negligence with the duties of landowners—a subject of practical interest to many Americans. The degrees of liability are various, and defenses to these and other torts abound, from defenses which admit the actions alleged but give an excuse—affirmative defenses—to issues of "proximate cause" which offer commonsense checks to the damages sought in many cases.
49 min
03: Intentional Interferences with Property
Intent, an essential component of many types of torts, has been legally refined to differentiate between action taken and necessary components of intent in that circumstance. The torts of trespass, conversion, and nuisance involve different actions, and the intent to perform those actions has also been construed differently. The subtleties are such that even without intending actual harm, one can be liable for harm caused.
45 min
04: Defamation
Defamation, a body of law that frequently produces high-profile litigation, is divided into the torts of libel and slander. Both have developed highly nuanced definitions, as the difference between a defamatory statement and an unflattering opinion can be difficult to discern. Public figures, for example, have different standards applied to them than ordinary private citizens in matters of defamation, and the elements of defamation, including publication and business interest, require much care to prove.
46 min
05: Privacy and Emotional Distress
Emotional distress, negligently or intentionally inflicted, is a tort that exacts very real penalties yet uses potentially subjective tests. The use of a "reasonable person's" perspective is the classic attempt at standardizing under law the effects of outrageous and negligent behavior on the emotions. Invasion of privacy is a tort that carries implications for the media, law enforcement, and workplace policies.
47 min
06: Product Liability
The power of a consumer to sue a manufacturer for injury by a product is bounded by several tests. Unavoidably unsafe products, or those which are reasonably safe in regard to their function, are protected from liability. Defects in design or manufacture are carefully weighed by courts before awarding damages, and there are also several defenses, such as assumption of risk, or product misuse, to a manufacturer's strict liability for injury to person or property.
47 min
07: Business Torts
Although most tort actions are initiated by individuals against other individuals, organizations, or corporations, suits for business torts can be brought by corporations against individuals. These include complex issues of wrongful interference with contract or prospective business, and misappropriation. This area of the law litigates, among other things, the intricacies of trade secrets and breaches of contract induced by third parties.
47 min
08: Trademark
Companies develop trademarks to develop and hold consumer goodwill. The law protects these trademarks from being used by others who aim to exploit that goodwill. Originally a common law issue, trademark law is now statutory. Different types of trademarks are treated with varying degrees of protection under law, but the main goal of statutes is to protect consumers from confusing products as a result of similar trademarks.
47 min
