Exercise 7

The following are statements that formulate or interpret the ideas expressed by the students in the dialogue. Agree, disagree or say that information is missing.

1. Negligence is such conduct when a person fails to behave reasonably and to care about other people and expose them to risk and danger.

2. Negligence concerns only those professionals who provide service to customers.

3. Duty of care is an obligation to feel concerned about others.

4. After you have breached the duty of care you should foresee what will come out of it.

5. When you foresee the possible trouble, you will not be held liable for negligence.

6. In court you have to prove only that the injury of another person has occurred through your breach of duty of care.

7. In order to get compensation in a negligence case you have to walk under open windows.

Exercise 8

A) Collect factual information to speak about negligence and rule to prove negligence case.

B) Make up a situation like the one described in the dialogue in order to explain a negligence case.

Exercise 9

Read the following situations. Provide connectors of cause /effect in the gaps. Make your decision and justify the point.

1) Jane is shopping in the supermarket. She turns the corner of the aisle and slips on some milk that has been spilled on the floor by a customer. A customer had reported the spill to an employee five minutes earlier, but the manager had decided he needed all his staff on the checkout lines and hadn’t gotten around to assigning anyone to clean it up before Jane fell. Can Jane recover her medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering costs from the supermarket?

A. Yes, ____the supermarket owes a duty of care to its customers, and it breached that duty when its staff failed to remove a known hazard.

B. No, ____ the supermarket can’t be held responsible when its customers spill milk.

C. Yes, ___ the supermarket is insured and the insurance company can afford to cover the loss better than the customer can.

2) A painter is carrying her painting to a gallery for appraisal. A driver jumps the curb in his car. The side view mirror rips the painting out of the artist’s hand and into mud, destroying it. Can the artist recover from the driver?

A. No, ___ there is no way of knowing what the painting was worth before it was destroyed.

B. No, ___ the driver couldn’t have known that the painting had any value.

C. Yes, ___ the driver’s carelessness caused the painter to lose the value of her painting.

3) Hannah is driving down the street when a truck driving next to her starts moving into her lane. Hannah has no choice but to cross the centerline to avoid being hit by the truck. Her car sideswipes an oncoming car driven by Martha, causing damage to the doors of both cars; the truck drives on without stopping and can’t be found. Can Martha recover damages from Hannah?

A. No, ___ Hannah did nothing either negligently or intentionally harmful to Martha’s property.

B. Yes, ___ the truck drove off and Martha, who is totally innocent, can’t be left without someone to pay her damages.

C. Yes, ___ Hannah should have let the truck hit her rather than enter another lane of traffic.

Exercise 10