Negligence

From Florida Legal Wiki

Four elements are necessary to sustain a negligence claim: (1) A duty, or obligation, recognized by the law, requiring defendant to conform to a certain standard of conduct, for the protection of others against unreasonable risks; (2) A failure on defendant's part to conform to the standard required (a breach of the duty); (3) A reasonably close causal connection between the conduct and the resulting injury (“legal cause” or “proximate cause”), which includes the notion of cause in fact; and (4) Actual loss or damage. Curd v. Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, 39 So.3d 1216, 1227 (Fla. 2010).

Tardif v. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, 160 Lab.Cas. P 61065, (M.D. Fla. 2010) (Case No. 2:09-cv-537-FtM-29SPC).

The claimant must first demonstrate that the defendant owed a duty, or obligation, recognized by the law, requiring the [defendant] to conform to a certain standard of conduct, for the protection of others against unreasonable risks. Clay Elec. Coop., Inc. v. Johnson, 873 So. 2d 1182, 1185 (Fla. 2003) (quoting Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 30, at 164 (W. Page Keeton et al. eds., 5th ed.1984)). Second, the claimant must establish that the defendant failed to conform to that duty. Id. Third, there must be [a] reasonably close causal connection between the [nonconforming] conduct and the resulting injury to the claimant. Id. Fourth, the claimant must demonstrate some actual harm. Id. Williams v. Davis, 974 So. 2d 1052, 1056 (Fla. 2007).

[edit] Actual Harm

The phrase some actual harm does not require a precise technical level or particular threshold of injury or impairment symptom that a plaintiff must satisfy to file an action. See Kneeland v. Tampa Northern R. Co., 116 So. 48, 48 (Fla. 1927) ("In actions where negligence is the basis of recovery, it is not necessary for the declaration to set out the facts constituting the negligence, but an allegation of sufficient acts causing the injury, coupled with an averment that they were negligently done, will be sufficient.").

Florida common law does not require an impairment or a particular manifestation of injury according to some arbitrarily adopted level before a cause of action accrues. In Hagan v. Coca-Cola Bottling Company, 804 So. 2d 1234, 1241 (Fla. 2001), the Florida Supreme Court held that an action for emotional distress could be maintained by plaintiffs who drank from a bottle that appeared to contain a used condom even though there was no accompanying discernable, particular physical injury or some level of impairment.