Torts and the Business Environment

Torts and the Business Environment

Tort liability which involves "unreasonable behavior that causes injury" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008) is referred to as negligence. While negligence is comprised of 'five separate elements: actual injury, proximate causation, causation in fact, and unreasonable behavior by the defendant that breaches duty" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008); it is the final element, "the existence of a duty of care owned by the defendant to the plaintiff" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008) which is the impetus of a negligence tort liability. The case of Iannelli v. Burger King involves the existence of duty and its bearing on the responsibility of a party, owing another party reasonable care.

Under the decision in this case, when does a duty arise for the defendant restaurant to protect its customers?

"Duty usually arises out of a person's conduct or activity" however, the Iannelli case examines a particular segment of duty of care, that of nonconduct. "Usually, a person has no duty to avoid injuring others through nonconduct" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008), yet if a court determines that a special relationship exists between parties, then "a duty to take action makes the defendant liable for its unreasonable nonconduct" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008). At the beginning narrative of the Iannelli case the assumption would be that a special relationship exists between the defendant Burger King and the plaintiff Iannelli however, this angle of argument is quickly dismissed by the Court. Drawing from precedent in Walls v. Oxford Management (a case of a landlord's potential responsibility to protect a tenant from criminal attack), the New Hampshire Supreme Court extends the general principle of law to restaurants and their patrons that "as a general principle landlords have no duty to protect tenants from criminal attacks" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008). The Court however, in absence of any special relationship between Burger King and Iannelli does use the Walls case to highlight "particular circumstances which can give rise to such duty" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008).

In deciding the case in favor of the plaintiffs, the court indicates that it was the duty of the Burger King establishment to recognize that the precipitant to the attack on Iannelli was the "teenagers' obnoxious, open, and notorious behavior in the restaurant" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008). This behavior "could reasonably have been anticipated to escalate into acts that would expose patrons to an unreasonable risk of injury" (Reed, O. Shedd, P. Morehead, J. & Pagnattaro, M. 2008). The court recognizes that "particular circumstances" warrant the defendant to take affirmative action to reduce the risk of injury" (Reed, O. Shedd