The Green Bag
506
'i.e., is unreasonably likely to cause, an
security or liberty, or of a normal prop
effect upon a person or thing that would be in fact a violation of another’s right of life, bodily security or normal
erty right.
property.
A person who has done or is doing an act that may cause such an effect must take such precautions as reason
ableness requires-11a, must use due care——to prevent it.
In many cases no
precautions would reasonably be re quired.
How far this duty corre
sponds to abnormal property rights I have not been able fully to satisfy myself. Intention here means simple intention. A person is guilty of a breach of this duty who plows his neighbor's
land or uses his neighbor's tools mis taking them for his own, or who uses force in supposed self-defense when the occasion does not justify it. There is a duty not to do acts with
Persons who deliver dangerous things
a culpable intention
that undoubt
to others, furnish things for others’ use,
edly corresponds to abnormal property
or invite or entice others or their property into situations of danger, owe certain duties to use care for their
rights and to absolute potestative rights. It is a breach of this willfully to use
protection, the exact nature of which
duties has been a subject for much difference of opinion.
another's trade-mark or to entice his wife to leave him knowing her to be a
wife. There is also a duty not with culpable
intention to interfere in certain ways DUTIES AS TO HARMFUL THINGS The possessor or keeper of a dangerous
thing owes duties to use due care to prevent it from doing harm; if the thing is actively dangerous, the duty may be peremptory, or if it is an animal. Taking the word “nuisance” to denote
a thing having certain harmful qualities, a person must not by his act cause the existence of a nuisance, or at least must
with another’s trade, and also—as I think, though it has been denied by
very high authority—not to do ma licious acts. I have discussed this duty in an article on Malicious Wrongs in the Law Quarterly Review, January, 1904. These last two duties corre spond to all rights in rem except that
of reputation, including the right of pecuniary condition. Their exact con
not do so intentionally or negligently. The possessor of a thing must use due care to prevent it from becoming a
tents are not yet well settled, and they
nuisance; if it is a nuisance, he may be under a duty to abate it, or to use due care to prevent it from doing harm. These duties as to harmful things cor respond to normal property rights, and
under the exceptions than under the duties. The duty not to make fraudulent misrepresentations corresponds to all
some of them to rights of life and bodily security.
GENERAL DUTIES OF INTENTION
are subject to so many and important exceptions that more actual cases fall
rights except that of reputation, in cluding the right of pecuniary condition. Nearly the same is true of the duty not to begin or carry on a malicious prose cution.
A person must not do any act with
Duties not to publish libels and slan
,an intention to cause thereby an effect
ders correspond to the right of reputa
that
will
be
in
fact
a
violation
of
.another’s right of life, bodily or mental
tion; perhaps the duty as to malicious prosecutions does also.
