Tort law worksheet with answers

How do English courts usually treat a person injured while rescuing someone endangered by the defendant's negligence?

1. AThey can usually claim, because rescue is foreseeable
2. BThey can claim only half their damages
3. CThey can claim only if they are professional rescuers, such as firefighters
4. DThey cannot claim, because they volunteered

Wrongfully dealing with another person's goods in a way that denies their rights, such as selling them, is the tort of:

1. AConversion
2. BPassing off
3. CNuisance
4. DBattery

In negligence, the standard of care is usually that of:

1. AThe claimant's expectations
2. BThe reasonable person in the defendant's position
3. CThe defendant's own personal best
4. DA perfect expert in every case

A boarding-house warden employed by a school abuses the boys in his care. In Lister v Hesley Hall, the employer was:

1. ALiable only for its own negligent hiring
2. BNot liable, because the warden acted for himself
3. CNot liable, because abuse is never within the course of the warden's employment
4. DVicariously liable, because the abuse was closely connected with his duties

A worker inhales silica dust from two sources, only one of which was due to the employer's breach. In Bonnington Castings v Wardlaw, the employer was liable because the guilty dust:

1. AMaterially contributed to the disease
2. BWas the only cause of the disease
3. CWas easier to prevent than the other dust
4. DWas more than half of the total dust

A doctor builds a consulting room next to a confectioner whose noisy machines had operated for years without complaint. Can the confectioner defend a nuisance claim by saying the doctor "came to the nuisance"?

1. AYes, the doctor accepted the noise by building there
2. BNo, coming to the nuisance is not a defence
3. CNo, because doctors have special protection
4. DYes, because the machines were used first

Under section 3 of the Defamation Act 2013, the honest opinion defence requires that the statement:

1. AWas a statement of fact, indicated its source, and was shown to be substantially true by the defendant
2. BWas published by a professional journalist
3. CWas an opinion, indicated its basis, and an honest person could have held it on the facts
4. DWas made with no intention to harm

The defence of "illegality" (ex turpi causa) in tort means that:

1. AThe defendant cannot be sued if the defendant's own conduct towards the claimant was itself a criminal offence
2. BOnly the state can bring the claim
3. CEvery claimant with a criminal record loses
4. DA claimant may be barred from recovering where the claim arises from their own serious illegal conduct