In the law of negligence, a major test for determining whether the acts or omissions of the defendant were the actual cause of the plaintiff's harm of loss: but for the defendants actions, the plaintiff would not have been hurt.

The court applied the but-for test when it concluded that the accident would not have occurred but for the driver of the van's carelessly fiddling with the radio immediately before the mishap.

In the law of evidence, that evidence which is sufficient to lead a reasonable person to come to a certain conclusion.  It would then be up to a party to rebut that conclusion by advancing arguments to the contrary, if he or she is able to do so.  This replaces the res ipsa loquitur principle in Canada.

Circumstantial evidence would suggest that the defendant had to prove it was not negligent where the plaintiff had no recollection of what happened and there were no witnesses: he was found lying unconscious on the sidewalk next to an empty barrel identical to other barrels sitting on a window ledge on property belonging to the defendant directly above the sidewalk.

Negligence that is attributable to the plaintiff herself in a given set of facts.  While it does not eliminate the defendant’s liability completely, it will reduce its extent, and the plaintiff will recover a lower amount of damages than she normally would.

The plaintiff’s damages against the defendant were reduced from $100,000 to $60,000; the court found contributory negligence on his part in that he had failed to buckle his seatbelt moments before the collision occurred.

The tendency that has prevailed for some time throughout North America for aggrieved persons to take legal proceedings against the party most likely to have the financial means to pay them compensation or to agree to a settlement.  One obvious feature of this is the principle of vicarious liability where employers will be held liable for the tortious acts of their employees.

A glaring instance of the deep pockets phenomenon was the case where, although the severely drunken plaintiff was seriously injured as a result of a collision involving his General Motors car and that of a speeding drunken driver, he successfully recovered $4.9 million dollars for fuel-burn injuries from General Motors.

That obligation not to cause harm that is owed by anyone to any other person when doing something that might affect that other person.  It varies from one situation to the next.  It is a primary element that a plaintiff must prove in order to succeed in an action for negligence.

The motorist driving on the highway owes a duty of care not only to other drivers and their passengers on the road but also to her own passengers, to pedestrians, to cyclists, and to owners of property adjoining the road.

The principle that affects liability of a party for the consequences of his acts in tort or contract if it was foreseeable that those acts would have those consequences.  The reasonable person test is invoked to determine where the outcome in any given situation was foreseeable; hence, sometime referred to as "reasonable foreseeability."

The foreseeability of the plaintiff’s suffering a miscarriage when she stepped off the bus and saw the aftermath of the defendant’s careless driving was such that her action had to be dismissed.

The major non-intentional tort in which the defendant either by failing to do something or else by doing something breaches the duty of care he owes to the plaintiff, thereby causing the plaintiff injury, harm, or loss.  There must be a reasonable connection between the defendant’s acts and the plaintiff’s injury.  The tort is so huge it often gets broken down into subcategories: e.g.. occupiers liability, product liability, professional liability, etc.

The consumer sued Heinz Canada for negligence causing him to become violently ill, after making a sandwich with the defendant’s bottle of ketchup that was found to contain maggot eggs in its cap.

A specific form of the larger tort of negligence in which the defendant makes a representation to the plaintiff that is not true; although the misrepresentation was not intentional, it was made carelessly according to the reasonable person test, and so the defendant will be liable in damages.  

The defendant realty made a negligent misrepresentation to the plaintiffs when it advised them that the house’s foundation was structurally sound; the defendant had overlooked a surveyor’s report that indicated a problem with termites.

In negligence law, a party having custody or control of premises on which loss to the plaintiff’s person or property has occurred.  Although it usually will be the owners of the premises, it is not confined to them alone. 

The defendant realtor conducting an open house was deemed to be the occupier of the premises when the plaintiff was not warned about the missing step at the bottom of the basement stairs and injured herself.

A sub-category of negligence law in which manufacturers of defective products will be liable for harm caused to consumers of the product.  

The plaintiffs recovered a substantial award of damages in their product liability suit against the pharmaceutical company that produced the dangerous drug.

A fundamental yardstick of law used to measure or determine whether certain conclusions of fact (as opposed to law) should  be reached in a civil action.  What the reasonable person would do is not what the average person would do but what the average, prudent person would do in the circumstances at hand.

A test in negligence law that determines whether a defendant should be liable for the harm to the plaintiff.  If the reasonable person would say there was not enough of a direct connection between the defendant’s acts or omissions and the plaintiff’s harm or loss, the defendant will not be liable. 

Although the defendant motorist had been driving carelessly when she hit the pedestrian, the remoteness test would say she should not be liable to the plaintiff for the heart attack he had after witnessing the accident.

(not to be confused with “duty of care”) That standard of care that the reasonable person says must be met once it is established a person owes a duty of care to someone else.

Although the airline had a duty of care to ensure that its passengers were protected from danger, it had met the standard of care that it owed by ensuring that the jet in question had been thoroughly checked for mechanical errors prior to take off.

The principle in law that in some circumstances a person should be liable for harm caused to others regardless of what precautions he may have taken to prevent it from happening.  It applies in tort law where the defendant has conducted some unusual activity on her property that is inherently dangerous or unnatural; then something escapes from the property and causes the plaintiff harm.

Under the principle of strict liability, the homeowners were still liable for the injuries their neighbour suffered after he was mauled by a bobcat that they kept on their property; although a 20-foot-high chain link fence enclosed the animal, vandals had apparently cut a hole in the fence the night before.

The legal principle that “the defendant takes his victim as he finds him”; in other words, a defendant will be liable for all the injuries of a plaintiff if a pre-existing medical condition would make them worse than what would normally be expected.

Although witnesses confirmed that the defendant only “tapped” the plaintiff on the nose, he was found liable for the plaintiff’s extensive damages because, unknown to the defendant at the time of the incident, the plaintiff was a hemophliliac.

The principle that a party can be legally liable in some circumstances for the actions of others.  It most commonly arises in employment situations where the employer will be liable for torts and other wrongs committed by its workers if committed within the scope of their employment, or in partnerships and other agency situations where one partner can be liable for torts and other wrongs committed by other partners conducting partnership business.

Because of vicarious liability, Dominoes Pizza was held liable for injuries caused to the two pedestrians hit by its worker who was negligently driving a van while making a delivery.

In tort law the legal principle that in some situations, a plaintiff will not be able to recover damages for the tortious behaviour (eg. negligence or battery) of the defendant if the plaintiff is deemed to have voluntarily assumed the risk involved in the activity in question.

Although he took his helmet off only for a few moments when doing some practice shots before the game, the plaintiff was unable to recover damages from the defendant after being hit in the head by a misfired puck; the voluntary assumption of risk principle precluded him from recovering anything.

A form of release that a party may obtain from another the terms of which will absolve it from legal liability for harm or injury. These are also referred to and are synonymous with “releases.” Unlike exemption clauses, the terms of which may be similar, waivers or releases are typically stand-alone documents rather than terms contained in a larger document.  To be effective a waiver must be clearly worded and brought to the attention of the other party who was capable of giving his consent to it.

The waiver signed by the skiers stipulated that they were fully aware of the inherent dangers of the hill and agreed they would not hold the ski company liable if they suffered injury.

In tort law, the test applied to determine whether a defendant in a particular situation owed a duty of care to the plaintiff.   If the reasonable person could reasonably foresee that what the defendant did or did not do would cause the plaintiff harm, then the defendant will be liable for the tort of negligence.

Applying the reasonable foreseeability  test, the court found that the defendant caretaker should have foreseen that someone would have slipped on the icy sidewalk if it had been left unsanded or unsalted for several hours.

A specific kind of insurance that can be obtained by businesses to cover the indirect financial losses arising from a business not operating because of destruction of the premises or its inaccessibility to customers for a period of time.  It typically covers the cost of mortgage or lease payments, employees’ salaries, taxes, and other expenses that would have to continue to be paid until the premises were rebuilt or accessibility was restored.

If it were not for business interruption insurance, the retail furniture store might have gone under during the two months that the street and sidewalks on Broad Street were rendered inaccessible to the general public.

A term typically found in insurance policies that requires the insured to have the policy cover at least 75-80 percent of the risk of loss, despite the fact a majority of property losses will be less than that.  If the insured chooses coverage for less than that proportion of loss, it will not be entitled to full reimbursement for the actual loss sustained.

The replacement value of the barn was $100,000, but the owner only insured it for $30,000; however, as the actual loss was only $20,000, the owner was entitled to just $7,500 compensation because of an 80 percent co-insurance clause in the insurance policy.

In contract law, the legal principle applied to interpreting contracts containing exemption clauses, as well as waivers and releases. The clauses will be upheld but the court’s interpretation of any uncertainty or ambiguity will be “preferred against” the party relying upon the exemption clause.

Because of the contra proferentum rule, the supplier was unable to exempt itself of liability because the term stipulating what goods were re-saleable or not was open to several different interpretations.

A kind of insurance arrangement in which an employer obtains insurance from an insurer (bonding company) to cover financial losses arising from theft and dishonesty of its employees that the latter might commit against it or its customers and clients.

Because the janitorial service had taken out a fidelity bond, the employer was reimbursed for the dishonesty of its worker who, over a period of six months, stole property worth $5,000 from the offices he cleaned.

An interest in property that an insured party has that is recognized by law as one capable of being compensated for should loss or damage to that property occur.  The person having an insurable interest is the one who would normally most suffer the loss that might occur.

The owner of the house that burned down, not his next door neighbour, had an insurable interest in the house.

An arrangement whereby one party (the insurer) agrees to indemnify another party (the insured) for an agreed consideration (the premium), from loss or liability arising from some event (the risk), which occurrence is uncertain.

The premises burned down on August 13, but because its owner had insurance on the building, the owner received funds to rebuild the premises by the end of October.

In law, the right of a party initially obliged to meet some financial and legal obligation to one party, to in turn recover the amount it had to pay from a third party.  It arises in tort and employment law under the principal of vicarious liability; in partnerships, partners can be obliged to subrogate what other partners had to pay to third parties; in insurance law, insurers can recover from parties causing property loss after having to pay the party insured.

Exercising its rights of subrogation, the fire insurance company recovered $150,000 from the estate of the arsonist for having caused the destruction of its policy holder’s property.

In insurance law, another term for the fiduciary relationship that exists in the relationship between the insured and the insurer.  The insured has a positive obligation to make full disclosure of the nature of the risk to the insurer or the latter may legally succeed in refusing to cover the loss.

As the insurance contract was one of utmost good faith, the insured was relieved of its obligation to compensate the insured business; the owner had failed to disclose he had experienced two fires previously in Ontario before taking out the policy.