Articles Posted in General Negligence Action

Defendant Carter pumped gas into his vehicle and left the station without paying. The station owner gave chase, and during the pursuit the station owner’s vehicle rear-ended Carter’s vehicle, injuring the plaintiff’s daughter. The daughter later died from the pain medication she was administered for treatment of her injuries

Carter moved for summary judgment, “argu[ing that his actions were not the proximate cause of the accident because he was not speeding or braking abruptly at the time the accident occurred.” The trial judgment dismissed the case against him.

The Court of Appeals reversed a grant of summary judgment, saying “we cannot say that no reasonable person could differ in concluding that an accident on a public road of Bay County was unforeseeable as Carter was seeking to escape from the pursuit. … This lawsuit does not concern Carter’s actions only at the moment of the collision, however. We agree with the appellant that Carter’s actions can be seen as a continuum beginning with the theft of the gasoline and continuing by fleeing through traffic from the [store owner’s] vehicle.”

The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that an exculpatory clause in a form signed at a snowboarding and snowtubing facility did not bar the plaintiff’s claim.

The Court rejected Plaintiff’s argument that the agreement was ambigious. The Court said “[w]e conclude that the agreement expressly and unambiguously purports to release the defendants from prospective liability for negligence.”

However, the Court said that the exculpatory clause was void as against public policy. The Court acknowledged that ” most states
uphold adhesion contracts releasing recreational operators from prospective liability for personal injuries caused by their own negligent conduct.” However, the Court held that several factors, including the fact that the plaintiff was relying on the defendants to make the premises safe and the fact that the contract was a “take it or leave it” proposition, to declare the clause void.

The defendant (Dr. Clark) in a civil case sued the plaintiff’s lawyers alleging “claims of negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, tortious interference with her business relationship with her insurance carrier and malicious prosecution. Dr. Clark sought compensatory and punitive damages arising from the filing and prosecution of the Dempsey action (the case filed originally filed by the plaintiff’s lawyers) .

The attorneys moved for summary judgment, alleging that they did not owe a duty to Dr. Clark. The trial judge sent two certified questions to the West Virginia Supreme Court. The Court ruled that it “could find no justification for imposing a duty of care in favor of an opposing party upon counsel. Imposition of such a duty can only work to the detriment of counsel’s own client and would adversely impact counsel’s duty of zealous advocacy for his or her own client and would create an impossible and unjustified conflict of interest. Accordingly, we hold that an attorney for a party in a civil lawsuit does not owe a duty of care to that party’s adversary in the lawsuit such that the adversary may assert a cause of action for negligence against the opposing attorney.”

Next, the Court discussed whether there was a litigation privilege applicable defeat the claims. The Court posed the issue as follows: “Is a party to a civil action barred, by virtue of the litigation privilege, from bringing claims for civil damages against the opposing party’s attorney if the alleged act of the attorney in the course of the attorney’s representation of the opposing party is conduct and not a written or oral statement which arose in the civil action and which has some relationship to the civil action?”