Tort Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Tort Law - Essay Example Because of the combined efforts of the county hospital staff, and Dr. Andrews the disability that will make Bobby’s life more difficult now will be doubly worse. Ace Sports might argue that Bobby shares comparative negligence because he should not have dunked the ball. However, had it not been Bobby who cut up his wrists dunking a ball, it would have eventually happened to some kid with the metal dangerously positioned as it was. Ace Sports had a contractual agreement with the school and a social duty to install a safe product. Gary Owen defines the five components of negligence as duty, breach, cause in fact, proximate cause and harm. Duty involves choices. â€Å"Negligence law assesses human choices to engage in harmful conduct as proper or improper. . . .Serving in this manner as the foundational element of a negligence claim, duty provides the front door to recovery for the principal cause of action in the law of torts† (Owen, 2010, p. 1674). Ace Sports had a duty to install a safe basketball hoop and breached that duty by leaving harmful metal sticking out around the rim. Bobby just happened to be the first to encounter the piece s of jagged metal. The school, of course, shares no liability because they relied on the competency of the people they hired to install the rims and presumably had no knowledge of the sharp rims. The first hospital, City General, where Rachel took Bobby, has some responsibility in Bobby’s hands being amputated. Their staff had a duty to treat Bobby at least to a point where no further damage would have been caused by a delay. Obviously, from City General’s point of view, they could have treated Bobby and then not been paid because he had no insurance. Their policy implies they had the right to refuse service based on a patient’s uninsured status and therefore his ability to pay for treatment. Paul H. Rubin calls medical care a commodity, specifically an â€Å"ambiguous product.† Rubin