4.3 Special Relationships and Duties
3 min read•july 23, 2024
Special relationships create unique duties of care in tort law. These relationships, like those between businesses and customers or landlords and tenants, impose higher standards of responsibility. Understanding these duties is crucial for grasping how the law allocates risk and liability.
Professional relationships also carry specific obligations. Doctors, lawyers, and other experts must meet industry standards and protect client interests. Property owners have varying duties to visitors, while some relationships require controlling third-party actions. These concepts shape how courts determine fault in negligence cases.
Special Relationships and Duties
Special relationships for duty of care
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- Common carriers and passengers
- Includes airlines (Delta), buses (Greyhound), trains (Amtrak), and other public transportation providers
- Obligated to ensure the safety of passengers during transportation
- Innkeepers and guests
- Encompasses hotels (Hilton), motels (Motel 6), and other lodging establishments
- Responsible for providing a safe environment and protecting guests from foreseeable harm
- Landlords and tenants
- Must maintain safe conditions on the rental property (fixing broken stairs)
- Required to disclose known hazards or defects (informing tenants about lead paint)
- Employers and employees
- Obligated to provide a safe work environment (proper safety equipment)
- Responsible for training and supervising employees adequately (safety protocols)
- Schools and students
- Must provide a safe learning environment (secure campus)
- Responsible for supervising students and protecting them from foreseeable harm (preventing bullying)
Professional duties to clients
- Doctors and healthcare professionals
- Obligated to provide medical care that meets the in their field (following accepted treatment guidelines)
- Must obtain before treatment (explaining risks and benefits)
- Required to maintain patient confidentiality (HIPAA regulations)
- Lawyers and legal professionals
- Must provide competent legal representation (thorough research and preparation)
- Obligated to act in the client's best interests (avoiding conflicts of interest)
- Required to maintain client confidentiality ()
- Must avoid conflicts of interest (representing opposing parties)
- Other professionals
- Accountants (CPA), engineers (PE)
- Obligated to provide services that meet the standard of care in their field (following industry standards)
- Must act in the client's best interests (providing accurate financial statements)
- Required to maintain client confidentiality (protecting sensitive information)
Property owner duties to visitors
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- Individuals who enter the property for the owner's business or commercial purposes (customers in a store)
- Property owners owe the highest to invitees
- Must inspect the property, repair known hazards (fixing broken handrails), and warn of hidden dangers (wet floor signs)
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- Individuals who enter the property with the owner's permission for their own purposes (social guests)
- Property owners owe an intermediate duty of care to licensees
- Must warn of known hazards (informing about a loose step) and refrain from creating new dangers (not leaving tools out)
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- Individuals who enter the property without the owner's permission (intruders)
- Property owners generally owe the lowest duty of care to trespassers
- Typically no duty to ensure the safety of trespassers, with some exceptions:
- for child trespassers (swimming pools)
- Must refrain from willful or wanton conduct that may cause injury (setting traps)
Duty to control third parties
- the conduct of employees
- Employers may be liable for the negligent or intentional acts of their employees within the scope of employment (delivery driver causing an accident)
- through the doctrine of (employer responsible for employee's actions)
- Duty to control the conduct of individuals with special relationships
- Parents may be liable for the actions of their minor children in some circumstances (vandalism)
- Mental health professionals may have a or protect potential victims from the actions of their patients ()
- Duty to control the conduct of third parties on one's property
- Property owners may be liable for failing to provide adequate security (insufficient lighting) or prevent foreseeable criminal acts by third parties on their premises (assaults in a parking lot)
Key Terms to Review (20)
Attorney-client privilege: Attorney-client privilege is a legal concept that protects the confidentiality of communications between a client and their attorney. This privilege ensures that any information shared for the purpose of obtaining legal advice remains private, fostering open and honest communication without fear of disclosure. It's essential for maintaining trust in the attorney-client relationship, allowing clients to share all relevant details without worry of those details being revealed to others.
Attractive nuisance doctrine: The attractive nuisance doctrine is a legal principle that holds landowners liable for injuries to children who trespass on their property if the property contains a hazardous condition that is likely to attract children. This doctrine recognizes that children may not fully understand the dangers posed by certain attractive features, such as pools, treehouses, or abandoned machinery, and therefore imposes a duty on landowners to take reasonable steps to protect against such risks.
Common carrier-passenger relationship: The common carrier-passenger relationship refers to the legal obligation and standard of care that exists between a common carrier, such as a bus or airline, and its passengers. In this relationship, the carrier is held to a higher standard of care because they are responsible for safely transporting passengers from one location to another, ensuring their safety and comfort throughout the journey.
Duty of Care: Duty of care is a legal obligation that requires individuals to adhere to a standard of reasonable care while performing acts that could foreseeably harm others. This concept is fundamental in determining liability in various legal contexts, including negligence and tort law.
Duty to Control: The duty to control refers to the legal obligation of an individual or entity to manage or regulate the actions of another person in certain relationships, ensuring that harm does not occur to others. This concept is particularly important in recognizing how specific relationships, such as that between parents and children or employers and employees, create a responsibility to prevent foreseeable risks of harm arising from the conduct of those under one's control.
Duty to Warn: Duty to warn is a legal obligation imposed on certain individuals or entities to inform others about potential risks or dangers that could cause harm. This concept is often linked to special relationships, such as those between a therapist and their patient or a doctor and their patient, where one party may have knowledge of a threat that the other party cannot foresee. The idea stems from the recognition that certain relationships create responsibilities to prevent harm by communicating relevant information.
Employer-employee relationship: The employer-employee relationship is a legal and social connection between an employer and an employee, where the employer has the right to control the work performed by the employee in exchange for compensation. This relationship carries specific responsibilities and duties, influencing the legal obligations related to safety, conduct, and performance. The dynamics of this relationship are crucial in understanding liability issues and the duties owed to both parties under various legal frameworks.
Fiduciary duty: Fiduciary duty is a legal obligation that one party has to act in the best interest of another party. This relationship typically arises in situations where one party places trust and confidence in another, creating a special duty of loyalty and care. Examples include relationships between trustees and beneficiaries, agents and principals, or attorneys and clients.
Good Samaritan Laws: Good Samaritan laws are legal statutes that provide protection to individuals who voluntarily provide assistance to those who are injured or in peril. These laws encourage bystanders to help others in emergency situations without the fear of being sued for unintentional harm or negligence. By offering this legal immunity, Good Samaritan laws promote a sense of social responsibility and community support, particularly when considering special relationships, professional duties, and the broader context of privileges and immunities.
Informed consent: Informed consent is the process by which a person voluntarily agrees to a proposed course of action, such as medical treatment or participation in research, after being fully informed of the risks, benefits, and alternatives involved. This concept is critical in establishing ethical standards, ensuring that individuals understand what they are consenting to and protecting their autonomy in decision-making.
Innkeeper-guest relationship: The innkeeper-guest relationship is a legal bond formed between a hotel or lodging provider and their guests, where the innkeeper has a heightened duty of care to ensure the safety and well-being of their guests during their stay. This relationship creates obligations for the innkeeper to maintain premises that are safe and secure, as well as to protect guests from foreseeable harm, making it a special category under tort law. This bond is recognized as an example of a special relationship that requires a higher standard of care compared to ordinary relationships.
Invitees: Invitees are individuals who are invited onto a property for a business purpose or for the mutual benefit of both the property owner and the invitee. This status establishes a special duty of care owed by the property owner to ensure that the premises are safe and free from hazards, which connects to the broader understanding of responsibilities that arise from special relationships in tort law.
Landlord-tenant relationship: The landlord-tenant relationship refers to the legal bond formed between a property owner (landlord) and a person who rents or leases that property (tenant). This relationship creates specific rights and duties for both parties, including obligations for maintenance, payment of rent, and the tenant's right to quiet enjoyment of the property.
Licensees: Licensees are individuals who enter a property with the permission of the owner but do not have a business purpose for their presence. This status distinguishes them from invitees, who are present for a business reason, and trespassers, who enter without permission. Property owners have a specific duty to protect licensees from foreseeable harm while on their property, making their status an important aspect of premises liability and safety duties.
Respondeat superior: Respondeat superior is a legal doctrine that holds an employer or principal legally responsible for the negligent actions of an employee or agent that occur within the scope of their employment. This concept emphasizes the idea that employers should be accountable for the actions of their employees when those actions are connected to their job duties. It is closely tied to concepts of vicarious liability and special relationships in legal responsibility.
School-student relationship: The school-student relationship refers to the unique legal and social bond that exists between educational institutions and their students. This relationship creates specific duties and responsibilities for schools, particularly regarding the safety and well-being of students while they are under the school's care. The nature of this relationship establishes a framework for liability in cases where a student is harmed due to the negligence of the school or its employees.
Standard of Care: Standard of care refers to the level of reasonable caution and competence expected from a person in a specific situation, particularly in negligence cases. It is used to determine whether an individual's actions meet the necessary legal threshold for duty and if they acted with the appropriate care to avoid causing harm to others. This concept is pivotal in assessing negligence, where it influences the expectations placed on individuals based on their relationships and the reasonable person standard.
Tarasoff Duty: The Tarasoff Duty refers to the legal obligation of mental health professionals to warn individuals who are being threatened with imminent harm by a patient. This duty arises from a landmark court case, Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, which established that when a therapist believes a patient poses a serious risk to another person, they must take reasonable steps to protect that potential victim.
Trespassers: Trespassers are individuals who unlawfully enter or remain on someone else's property without permission. This term is crucial in understanding the legal duties owed by property owners to different types of visitors, including the responsibilities that arise in special relationships and duties regarding safety and protection from harm.
Vicarious Liability: Vicarious liability is a legal doctrine that holds one party responsible for the negligent actions of another, typically in an employer-employee relationship. This concept allows an injured party to seek compensation from an employer when an employee causes harm while performing work-related duties, even if the employer was not directly at fault. Understanding this principle is essential in various contexts, such as how strict liability applies to employers, or how special relationships influence the duties and responsibilities involved.