First Page
657
Abstract
A prima facie case of negligence has four elements: duty, breach, causation, and injury. In plain English, a person suing for negligence alleges that the defendant owed her a duty of reasonable care and injured her by breaching that duty. Every state adheres to the four-element account,' with perhaps two exceptions. That ac- count was prominent in the various editions of Prosser's treatise, and is likewise prominent in Professor Dobbs' successor treatise. Leading casebooks also feature the four-element formula.
Given the widespread adoption of the four-element test, one would have expected to encounter it somewhere in the two drafts of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: General Principles now circulating before the ALI. Yet, it is not there. The basic negligence provision drafted by Professor Schwartz is Section 3. It offers a three-element account of the tort:
Negligence Liability:
"An actor is subject to liability for negligent conduct that is a legal cause of physical harm."
Recommended Citation
John C.P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky,
The Restatement (Third) and the Place of Duty in Negligence Law,
54 Vanderbilt Law Review
657
(2001)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol54/iss3/2