Business Degree Certification Practice Test

In a negligence case, what must the plaintiff establish?

1. Duty, strict liability, causation, and injury.

2. Mens rea, breach, foreseeable harm, and injury.

3. Duty of due care, breach, causation, foreseeable harm, and injury.

4. Duty, actus reus, foreseeable harm, and causation.

The correct answer is: Duty of due care, breach, causation, foreseeable harm, and injury.

In a negligence case, the plaintiff must establish several key elements to prove their claim. The correct answer highlights these essential components as duty of due care, breach, causation, foreseeable harm, and injury. The duty of due care refers to the obligation an individual or entity has to avoid causing harm to others. This establishes that the defendant had a responsibility to act in a certain way to prevent foreseeable harm. The second element, breach, involves showing that the defendant failed to meet that duty—essentially, that their actions or inactions fell short of what a reasonable person would do under similar circumstances. Causation connects the breach of duty to the injury, demonstrating that the defendant's actions were a direct cause of the plaintiff's harm. It consists of two parts: actual causation (or "cause-in-fact") and proximate causation (whether the injury was a foreseeable result of the defendant's actions). The terms foreseeable harm and injury refer to the requirement that the plaintiff suffered actual harm or loss, and that this harm was a foreseeable result of the defendant’s breach of duty. Collectively, these elements ultimately establish the foundation of a negligence claim by requiring the plaintiff to demonstrate not only that the defendant acted unreasonably but