Tort practitioners, which I am in part, still look at duty, breach, causation, and injury.? When looking at the "duty" there still is a distinction between acting and failing to act, with acting more likely to generate a duty.? For example, here in Washington State the courts ruled that there was no duty to rescue a boy badly injured in a car accident, lying more-or-less face down in a shallow puddle at the bottom of the road embankment.? A dozen or more hours after the alleged tortfeasors first saw him he died, apparently no longer able to lift his head out of the water to breathe.? Similarly, the basic rule is that apartment owners have no duty to act to protect tenants against criminal acts of other tenants, although an owner who is on notice that one tenant has invaded the unit of another, apparently through a common attic under the landlord's control, may be liable for subsequent criminal acts (which imposes a duty to act, the breach of which may establish liability).
And it is still an open question whether the landlord creates liability for himself by enacting either a no-guns or a guns-allowed policy. Of course, the legislature can always establish?a duty to act, or not fail to act,?through legislation. Eric Stahlfeld Seattle, WA
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
