Saksham Gaikwad

Semester II

Roll Number – 2056

Law of Torts, MV Act and Consumer Protection

(Answer 1)

Material Facts:

• X and Y are a married couple who work at the same hospital, ABC, in Jaipur.
• X’s working hours are from 8 AM to 8 PM, except on weekends.
• X’s duty is to immediately report power cuts to the generator room of his wing, so that
such fault can be fixed as soon as possible.
• The third floor of X’s wing has an intensive care unit (ICU), in which P is admitted on
critical life support.
• Owing to an altercation between Y and C and X being involved in the same, X fails to
report the power cut to the generator room.
• X’s failure in reporting the power cut on time leads to the death of P.

Issue at Hand:

Whether X’s act can be considered a tort with respect to P?

Essentials of Tort:

• Defendant must have committed an act or an omission

• Such act or omission should have resulted in legal/actual harm (injuria), i.e., the
violation of the claimant’s legal right.
• Such act or omission must be related to a legal duty/right.

Analysis of the Present Facts:

In the present set of facts, the three essentials stated above have been fulfilled.

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 - X had a legal duty which was allotted to him by the hospital, i.e., to report power cuts
to the generator room, in order to rectify the error as soon as possible. Knowing the
presence of an Intensive Care Unit in his wing, the duty needed to be performed with
extreme care and diligence.
- This duty, allotted to X, was omitted by him because of his involvement in an
altercation that took place between his wife, Y, and C.
- The omission of his duty led to the death of P, since, not rectifying the error on time led
to issues in the intensive care unit (ICU), because of which its functioning was
hampered.

Although there was no malafide intention present in X’s mind, it was reasonably foreseeable
that irregularities in reporting the power cut to the generator room can lead to major accidents
in the hospital, since X knew there was an intensive care unit (ICU) present under his watch.

The attention needed and functioning required by an ICU was very well known by X owing to
the duty allotted to him.

Patients on critical life support demand extreme care and caution in their treatment and being
admitted in a hospital, it is their legal right to be treated with the required due diligence. And
in the present situation, such legal right was injured due to the acts of X.

Conclusion:

Since all the elements of tort are present in the case at hand, therefore, X is tortiously liable
with respect to the death of P.

(Answer 2)

Material Facts:

• Y is an 8-year-old boy, who has been attending online classes owing to the COVID
restrictions in his city.
• Y’s parents had daily jobs and therefore, they used to leave Y at their neighbour’s
residence so that he could attend his virtual classes.

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 • Z, who was Y’s classmate, was his neighbour as well and both of them attended classes
together.
• Y and Z used Z’s father’s laptop for attending their online classes.
• During one such class, their teacher shouted at them for not paying attention. Because
of this, Y decided to suddenly leave.
• When Y got up to leave, he accidentally knocked over the laptop and it fell from the
table.
• Laptop was badly damaged because of this.

Issue at Hand:

Whether Y’s act can be considered a tort with respect to Z’s father.

Liability of Minors in Torts:

- Minor shall be made liable for his/her own torts.

- However, minors shall be made liable for tortuous acts if the acts committed by them
were ‘voluntary’ in nature.
- Children from the age of 7-12 shall not be made liable unless they have sufficient
maturity to judge the consequence of their act.

Analysis of the Present Facts:

In the present situation, Y is an 8-year-old boy, which makes him a minor in this situation.
According to the given facts, it is clear that the knocking off of the laptop from the table by Y
was done ‘accidentally’ and was not done with any malafide intention.

In Tort law, minors can be made liable only if their acts are carried out with a specific intention.
Here in the present case, the action took place without any intention and only in the heat of the
moment.

It is clear to understand that the 8-year-old child is not capable of understanding the
consequences of his actions and therefore the essentials to make a minor liable are absent in
this case.

Therefore, both the requirements are absent in this case.

Conclusion:

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Y shall not be held tortuously liable for damaging the laptop, since he was an 8-year-old child
who did the act without any wrongful intention and was incapable of judging the outcome of
his actions.

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