Legal liability

“ We have already seen that the term liability has also a wider sense, in which it is the correlative of any legal power or liberty, and not merely of the right of action or prosecution vested in a person wronged. ”

“ The theory of remedial liability presents little difficulty. It may be laid down as a general principle, that, whenever the law creates a duty, it should enforce the specific fulfilment of it. The sole condition of the existence of remedial liability is the existence of a legal duty binding upon the defendant and unfulfilled by him. What a man ought to do by a rule of law, he ought to be made to do by the force of law. ”

“ The rulings of the court were that, 'under the code, a defendant cannot permit judgment to go against him upon a legal liability, and then enjoin the judgment in equity upon equitable grounds known before the judgment at law was rendered ”

“ If there is no act, there is no liability. To these nominate torts, each with its own special rules, coming down from the strict law, we added a new ground of liability, namely, negligence, going on a principle, not of duty to answer for aggression, but of duty to answer for injuries resulting from falling short of a legal standard of conduct governing affirmative courses of action. ”

“ Reverting, for example, to the subject powers, it might be difficult at first glance to discover any essential and fundamental similarity between conditional sales of personalty, escrow transactions, option agreements, agency relations, powers of appointment, etc. But if all these relations are reduced to their lowest generic terms, the conceptions of legal power and legal liability are seen to be dominantly, though not exclusively, applicable throughout the series. ”

“ The former gives to the plaintiff, the latter to the defendant, that which he deserves.
A wrong regarded as the subject-matter of civil proceedings is called a civil wrong; one regarded as the subject-matter of criminal proceedings is termed a criminal wrong or a crime. The position of a person who has, by actual or threatened wrongdoing, exposed himself to legal proceedings, is termed liability or responsibility, and it is either civil or criminal according to the nature of the proceedings to which the wrongdoer is exposed. ”

“ It includes, for example, the duty to pay a debt, to perform a contract, or to pay damages for a tort, but not the duty to refrain from interference with the person, property, or reputation of others. Secondly, the term obligation is in law the name not merely of the duty, but also of the correlative right. It denotes the legal relation or vinculum juris in its entirety, including the right of the one party, no less than the liability of the other. Looked at from the point of view of the person entitled, an obligation is a right ”

“ The costs and expenses of the trust are allowed by the court upon a reference to its own master. If the adjustment of the claim involves any dispute in regard to the alleged negligence of the receiver, or any other fact upon which his liability depends, or in regard to the amount of the damages sustained by a party, the court, in a proper case, in the exercise of its legal discretion, either of its own motion or on the demand of the party injured, may allow him to sue the receiver in a court of law, or direct the trial of a feigned issue to settle the contested facts. ”

“ Limitation on Liability. EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW, AND EXCEPT FOR DAMAGES ARISING FROM LIABILITY TO A THIRD PARTY RESULTING FROM BREACH OF THE WARRANTIES IN SECTION 5, IN NO EVENT WILL LICENSOR BE LIABLE TO YOU ON ANY LEGAL THEORY FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OF THE WORK, EVEN IF LICENSOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
7. ”

“ When a man commits a tort, he incurs, by force of the law, a liability to damages, measured by certain rules. When a man makes a contract, he incurs, by force of the law, a liability to damages, unless a certain promised event comes to pass. ”

“ Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 49-50.↑ 'Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any inhabitant of any State * * * to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States * * * shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.'↑ Civil liability has always been drawn from such indefinite standards as reasonable care, a man of ordinary prudence, foreseeability, etc. ”

“ As the example of the fair use doctrine shows, where such countervailing policy considerations exist, the courts stand on relatively firm historical ground in declining to impose liability even where the defendant’s conduct appears to fall within the literal prohibitions of the statute. ”

“ Two errors are assigned by the defendants, as follows: 1. That the court, instead of adjudging that the defendants were liable, should have decided that they were exempt from liability, by virtue of the proviso in the policy. 2. ”

“ Undoubtedly any suit to establish the civil liability imposed by the Act must ultimately seek recovery of the consideration paid less income received or damages if the claimant no longer owns the security. ”

“ The double liability, in civil and criminal proceedings, finds its counterpart in many instances; as, for example, where an attorney is disbarred or ousted of his right to practise in the court because of conduct for which he may likewise be prosecuted and fined. ”

“ The parties urge that the alternatives in selecting the law to determine liability under this statute are: (1) the internal law of the place where the negligence occurred, or (2) the whole law (including choice-of-law rules) of the place where the negligence occurred, or (3) the internal law of the place where the operative effect of the negligence took place. ”

“ It is a delicate business to base speculations about the purposes or construction of a statute upon the vicissitudes of its passage. Here we have as against the arguments of the claimant the fundamental and necessarily governing consideration that rightly prevailed below. A liability in any case is not to be imposed upon a Government without clear words. ”

“ The liability of the United States is established by the findings of the Court of Claims and is not disputed. Neither is there any dispute that the profits that the plaintiff would have made are a proper measure of the damages suffered. ”

“ The language there is 'that where by law a responsibility is made to arise from the violation of a statute knowingly, proof of something more than negligence is required,-that is, that the violation must in effect be intentional.' Not, therefore, that as a condition of liability there should be proof of something more than recklessness,-not that there should be an intentional violation,-but a violation 'in effect' intentional. ”

“ There is a clear difference between the revival of a liability which is unenforceable only because a statute has barred the remedy regardless of the will of the parties, and the extension of a liability beyond the limit expressly agreed upon by the parties. ”

“ It contains the fundamental provision on which the others turn. It broadly declares that 'the liability . . . for any . . . damage . . . occasioned without the privity or knowledge of such owner . . . ”

“ The extension of the doctrine of liability without fault to new situations to attain a permissible legislative object is not so novel in the law or so shocking 'to reason or to conscience' as to afford in itself any ground for the contention that it denies due process of law. ”

“ Yet there are exceptional cases in which, for sufficient or insufficient reasons, the law sees fit to break through the rule as to mens rea. It disregards the formal condition of liability, and is satisfied with the material condition alone. It 333holds a man responsible for his acts, independently altogether of any wrongful intention or culpable negligence. Wrongs which are thus independent of mens rea may be distinguished as wrongs of absolute liability. ”

“ Because of its implications for constitutional law, in view of the increasing frequency of legislation imposing responsibility at one's peril in certain enterprises, in the case of certain dangerous agencies and in situations where it is felt that the loss should be borne by all of us rather than by the luckless individual who chances to be hurt, the basis of tort liability has become a question of moment beyond the immediate law of torts. ”

“ The same considerations which have been urged to show that an act alone, by itself, does not and ought not to impose either civil or criminal liability, apply, at least frequently, to a series of acts, or to conduct, although the series shows a further co-ordination and a further intent. ”

“ Where an agent or officer of the Government purporting to act on its behalf has been held to be liable for his conduct causing injury to another, the ground of liability has been found to be either that he exceeded his authority or that it was not validly conferred. ”

“ If the wrongful act was done by himself, or was occasioned by his negligence, of course he is liable, and he is equally so, if the act constituting the fault was done by one towards whom he bore the relation of principal, but the liability ceases where the relation of principal entirely ceases to exist, as in case of inevitable accident. ”

“ Does a law which, for accidents in certain carefully defined and especially dangerous employments, transfers the liability from the individual to the organization, and which carefully preserves the right of the employer to submit any questions which arise under the law to the courts for adjudication, deprive the employer of his property without due process of law? The Court of Appeals of New York State affirms that it does. ”

“ It became the duty of the court below to consider and determine whether, in the circumstances stated, appellee was relieved of liability and permitted by the statute to do what otherwise would have constituted a violation of appellant's rights. ”

“ It is only when plaintiff's act is the sole cause-when defendant's act is no part of the causation-that defendant is free from liability under the act.'
As in the argument at bar reliance is solely placed, except in one particular, upon error which is assumed to have arisen from the refusal of the trial court to give the charge previously referred to, and the judgment of the court below in approving this action of the trial court upon the theory that it was right in view of the provisions of the employers' liability act, we come to consider this subject. ”

“ Many cases may be found which hold, that where false answers are made to inquiries which do not relate to the risk, the policy is not necessarily avoided unless they influenced the mind of the company, and that whether they are material is for the determination of the jury. But we know of no respectable authority which so holds, where it is expressly covenanted as a condition of liability that the statements and declarations made in the application are true, and when the truth of such statements forms the basis of the contract. ”

“ It is very plain that the error which occurs in the case before the court was not a mistake of law, but of fact, or a technical mistake, for the reason that, at the time when that settlement was made, there was an actual existing liability for which the appellant was obliged to account.
Where a party has been subjected by a decree to a contingent and probable liability, he may be compelled to account, with a view to that liability, when the state of things shall happen upon which it may depend. ”

“ These assignments are reducible to three propositions, to wit: (1) the capacity of plaintiffs to sue, (2) the application of the safety-appliance law, and (3) the measure of damages. Their discussion requires a consideration of the employers' liability law, as the amended complaint is based on that law. ”

“ Hence, the complainant must show in himself an apparent prima facie right of property or action, to the subject-matter of the injunction, as well as an injury intended or threatened by the defendant, which, if done, cannot be compensated by damages or adequate legal remedies, and can be effectually averted only by the protecting preventive power of a court of equity. ”

“ Among the refinements developed by the common law for the purpose of limiting the risk of liability arising from wrongful conduct is the rule that violation of a statutory duty creates liability only when the statute was intended to protect those in the position of the plaintiff from the type of injury in fact incurred. ”

“ In this court the condition of the assignee cannot be better than it would be at law in any mode he could take to recover what was due upon the assignment.' The principle is distinctly recognized that the measure of liability upon the instrument secured is the measure of the liability chargeable upon the security. The condition of the assignee cannot be better in law than it is in equity. ”

“ Or if the statute had made him liable for costs, unless the court before which the trial took place certified that there was probable cause for instituting the prosecution, its validity would have been equally clear. The liability imposed upon him by the statute is less than in either of the cases supposed. He is not made absolutely liable for the costs, nor is a certificate of probable cause required to protect him from liability. ”

“ He is chargeable for all losses except such as may be occasioned by the act of God or the public enemy. He insures against all accidents which result from human agency, although occurring without any fault or neglect on his part; and he cannot, by any mere act of his own, avoid the responsibility which the law thus imposes. He cannot screen himself from liability by any general or special notice, nor can he coerce the owner to yield assent to a limitation of responsibility by making exorbitant charges when such assent is refused. ”

“ In a case of such importance as that which involves a man's liability or non-liability for his debts after he has given up all his property, he ought not to be deprived of the right of appeal if the law, fairly considered, gives it to him. ”