Liability

“ Other cases of what I have called inflated and unreal explanations, which collapse at the touch of history, are the liability of a master for the torts of his servant in the course of his employment, to which I have referred earlier, and which thus far never, in my opinion, has been put upon a rational footing; and the liability of a common carrier, which, as I conceive, is another distorted survival from the absolute responsibility of bailees in early law, crossed with the liability of those exercising a common calling to which I have referred. ”

“ It may impose an extraordinary liability such as the present, not only upon those at fault but upon those who, although not directly culpable, are able nevertheless, in the management of their affairs, to guard substantially against the evil to be prevented. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Modern civil law recognises vicarious liability in two chief classes of cases. In the first place, masters are responsible for the acts of their servants done in the course of their 375employment. In the second place, representatives of dead men are liable for deeds done in the flesh by those whom they represent. ”

“ He then points out that for a neglect of such ordinary care or skill whereby injury happens, the appropriate remedy is an action for negligence. The right to enforce this liability is not to be confined to the immediate buyer. The right, he says, extends to the persons or class of persons for whose use the thing is supplied. It is enough that the goods “would in all probability be used at once ... ”

“ 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 . . . ”

“ But here the basis of liability must be found in a relation. The fiction of an undertaking to use the skill or diligence involved in a relation or calling is a juristic way of saying that one who deals with another in such a relation or with another who professes such a calling is justified in assuming the skill and diligence ordinarily involved therein, so that the law holds those in the relation or engaged in the calling to that standard in order to maintain the general security. In other words another, [Pg 172] though closely related, postulate of civilized society is involved. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So far, therefore, as the beneficiaries and the agents are different persons, the liability of bodies corporate is an instance of vicarious responsibility, and it is to be justified on the same principles as are applicable to the vicarious liability of a principal for the unauthorised acts of his agent—principles which will be considered by us at a later stage of our enquiry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hardly a rule of today but may be matched by its opposite of yesterday. Absolute liability for one's acts is today the exception; there must commonly be some tinge of fault, whether willful or negligent. ”

“ Were this not so, the almost universal acceptance of the first proposition in this Lecture, that the general foundation of liability for unintentional wrongs is conduct different from that of a prudent man under the circumstances, would leave all our rights and duties throughout a great part of the law to the necessarily more or less accidental feelings of a jury. ”

“ This problem of liability to third persons is resolved by determining whose enterprise the particular venture was. The fact that the parties say it is the enterprise of one, not the other, is not decisive. ”

“ It is quite true that 'the extent of the liability to be incurred must be expressed by the surety, or necessarily comprised in the terms used in the obligation or contract;' that is, 'the obligation is not to be extended to any other subject, to any other person, or to any other period of time than is expressed or necessarily included in it.' 'In this sense only,' continues Mr. ”

“ Intentional aggression, (2) negligent action, (3) failure to restrain potentially dangerous things which one maintains or potentially dangerous agencies which one employs. Accordingly these three are the immediate bases of delictal liability.
Controversial cases of liability without fault involve the third postulate. Systematic writers have found no difficulty in reconciling the law of negligence with the will theory of liability and the doctrine of no liability without fault. ”

“ Properly speaking, a person is said to be responsible when he is liable to be called to account for his acts, a liability which implies that he is free to act in one way or another. These two aspects of the term, the liability and the freedom of choice implied, lead to its use in two opposite senses. ”

“ Another peculiarity to be noticed is, that the liability seems to have been regarded as attached to the body doing the damage, in an almost physical sense. An untrained intelligence only imperfectly performs the analysis by which jurists carry responsibility back to the beginning of a chain of causation. ”

“ Wherever, by either the common law or the statute law of a State, a right of action has become fixed and a legal liability incurred, that liability may be enforced and the right of action pursued in any court which has jurisdiction of such matters and can obtain jurisdiction of the parties. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whether or not a person who could have anticipated the potential liability attaching to his chosen course of conduct would have avoided the liability by altering his conduct has been significant in at least one line of cases in this Court. ”

“ We are prompted, therefore, to seek guidance from the rules of liability which prevail in our society with respect to compensation of persons injured by the improper performance of a legitimate activity by another. Under these rules, a departure from the kind of care society may expect from a reasonable man performing such activity leaves the actor open to a judicial shifting of loss. ”

“ No doubt the general foundation of legal liability in blameworthiness, as determined by the existing average standards of the community, should always be kept in mind, for the purpose of keeping such concrete rules as from time to time may be laid down conformable to daily life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is such a thing as unlimited liability; of the justice of such laws I do not now speak, but the law exists, and as it was made by moneyed men in the interest of moneyed men they cannot refuse to be judged by it. ”

“ The term act is very commonly restricted to intentional acts, but this restriction is inadmissible in law. Intention is not a necessary condition of legal liability, and therefore cannot be an essential element in those acts which produce such liability. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is only intended to point out that, when we are dealing with that part of the law which aims more directly than any other at establishing standards of conduct, we should expect there more than elsewhere to find that the tests of liability are external, and independent of the degree of evil in the particular person's motives or intentions. ”

“ Action to recover such liability may be maintained in any court of competent jurisdiction by any one or more employees for and in behalf of himself or themselves and other employees similarly situated, or such employee or employees may designate an agent or representative to maintain such action for and in behalf of all employees similarly situated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a right or privilege by which several individuals may unite themselves under a common name, and act as a single person, with a succession of members, without dissolution or suspension of business, and with a limited individual liability. ”

“ We see no reason to limit subordinate bias liability to situations that closely resemble the "cat's paw," "rubber stamp," "conduit," "vehicle," or other metaphors that imaginative lawyers and judges have developed to describe such claims. ”

“ The officer is not the corporation; his liability is personal, and not that of the corporation, nor can it be counted among the powers and privileges of the corporation.'↑ For an analysis of the confusion on this matter in the state and lower federal courts, see Lee, 'Corporate Criminal Liability,' 28 Col.L.Rev. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when the liability is not only a lien on the vessel, but a claim against the owner personally, if satisfaction is not secured by process in rem, the deficiency may be made good by proceedings in personam. ”

“ One does not speak of probable cause when justification is complete. Here the certifying judge will be subject to a specific duty upon the facts admitted by the demurrer to relieve the collector of personal liability and to shift the burden to the Treasury. ”