Limits on Liability
Limits on Liability
Duty and Scope of Liability
This chapter describes how tort law deploys the concepts of duty and scope of liability (proximate cause) to limit civil liability. Some of these limits overlap with psychological principles; others are at odds with them. The lack of a general duty to rescue others from harm converges with omission bias, the psychological tendency to see acts as more blameworthy than failures to act. The foreseeability of specific types of harms that could result from an action is a key element in assessing the scope of liability, also in line with psychology. In contrast, people highly value emotional tranquility and close personal relationships, yet tort law places strict constraints on recovery for emotional harm.
Keywords: duty, duty to rescue, emotional harm, foreseeability, omission bias, proximate cause, scope of liability
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