Posted: August 4th, 2022

Paula Plaintiff’s Really Bad Week, Part 1

Paula Plaintiff’s Really Bad Week, Part 1
n this assignment, you’ll need to decide whether Paula Plaintiff has any legal claims arising from a series of unfortunate events. After reading the scenario, answer the questions that follow, making sure to fully explain the basis of your decision.

Paula Plaintiff is shopping at her favorite store, Cash Mart. She is looking for a new laptop, but she can’t find one she likes. Then, realizing that she is going to be late for an appointment, she attempts to leave the store, walking very fast. However, before she can leave, she is stopped by a security guard who accuses her of shoplifting. Paula, who has taken nothing, denies any wrong doing. The officer insists and takes Paula to a small room in the back of the store. The guard tells Paula that if she attempts to leave the room she will be arrested and sent to jail. At this point, the guard leaves the room. Paula is scared and waits in the room for over an hour until the manager comes in and apologizes and tells Paula that she is free to go.

About this same time, Geoffrey Golfer is hitting golf balls in his backyard. Geoffrey decides to break out his new driver and hits a golf ball out of his backyard into the Cash Mart parking lot. The golf ball hits Paula Plaintiff on the head and knocks her unconscious just as she is leaving the store.

Instructions
In a 6–10 paragraph paper, answer the following questions:

What types of legal claims could Paula make against Cash Mart and Geoffrey? Consider the following:
What are the possible tort claims that Paula can make against Cash Mart? Ace my homework – Write my paper – Online assignment help tutors – Discuss the elements of the claim and how those elements relate to the facts in the scenario.
Was Geoffrey negligent when he hit the golf ball that injured Paula? Ace my homework – Write my paper – Online assignment help tutors – Discuss the elements of negligence and use facts from the scenario to support your decision.
If Paula files a negligence claim against Geoffrey will she file in civil court or criminal court? Explain the difference between civil court and criminal court.

Paula Plaintiff’s Really Bad Week, Part 1
The scenario presented describes two instances that Paula Plaintiff can bring legal claims. The first incident is when Paula is denied to leave despite the store employee knowing that she did not engage in any criminal act. The second incident occurs when Geoffrey decides to break out his driver while playing golf resulting in the golf to hit Paula Plaintiff. Therefore, Paula Plaintiff can bring two types of legal claims with a tort claim against Cash Mart and a negligence claim against Geoffrey.
The first incident in the scenario enmeshes the Federal Tort Claims that was enacted in 1946. The enforcement of the Federal Tort Claims provided a limited waiver of sovereign immunity of the United States Government. It specifically provides that in the process, an individual is injured due to negligent or wrongdoing acts are entitled to restitution or compensation through federal courts from the federal government. Despite the security guard not being an employee of the federal government, several categories of torts still exist under the tort law that can be used as legal claims by Paula against Cash Mart. Paula can sue Cash Mart based on two tort claims of slander and defamation in a state court. Defamation involves a false statement made by a person to another presented as a fact resulting in a personal injury or damaging one’s character when heard by a third party. Paula Plaintiff can also sue Cash Mart under the slander claim, which also involves stating untrue, defamatory statements to a person (Sember, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers).
In the scenario provided, the security guard that confronted Paula claimed that she was shoplifting, which was not true. The presence of other shoppers and employees of Cash Mart justified the claim to sue Cash Mart if the account is proven not to be true, causing damage to the plaintiff’s reputation. Paula will also have a strong case against Cash Mart, considering that the statements made against the plaintiff were false and led to false detention, defamation, falsity, and inflicting distress to Paula. The act of false detention can be proved by assessing if the security guard had a legal basis for detaining the plaintiff. The legal bases of detention involve the presence of reasonable suspicion that an individual might have stolen something and voluntary consent. Therefore, the security guard acted within the legal basis of detention based on reasonable suspicion that Paula might have stolen something. The voluntary consent legal bases for detention would behave achieved if Paula consented to have been detained without coercion, which means she could make a tort claim under false imprisonment. Therefore, the court will assess if the security guard fulfilled in full the legal basis of detention when he detained Paula. However, based on the scenario, the security guard failed to achieve the legal basis of detention by threatening Paula of being arrested and sent to jail, which justifies that despite the security guard having reasonable suspicious, he used coercion. By Paula proving the use of coercion for her detention, which arises to false imprisonment and all tort claim elements, she will stand a chance of recovering personal injury damages.
Geoffrey was negligent when he hit the golf ball that injured Paula, giving her the cause to sue Geoffrey under negligent and claim damages. However, Paula and the court would have to prove that Geoffrey Golfer was categorically negligent. The theory of negligence is a common basis of holding an individual responsible for the harm. Therefore, negligence is considered a careless act of a person that results in another person’s injury and the negligent person is accountable for causing the harm. For a negligence lawsuit to be successful, the plaintiff will have to prove several elements of negligence. The first element of negligence to be determined is if the defendant did not practice his duty to the plaintiff. The element of duty states that the defendant owes the plaintiff a legal duty by acting with care towards the plaintiff. Geoffrey is considered to have breached the element of duty in the case scenario when he hit a golf ball that went off his backyard to hit Paula in the parking lot of Cash Mart. Since Paula was in a public space, Geoffrey owed her a duty of care that he had breached (Laws, 2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers). Another negligence element that the plaintiff needs to prove is that the defendant breached the duty of care element. The breach of duty of care element involves justifying that the defendant failed to exercise reasonable care towards fulfilling the duty of care in his or her action.
In the case scenario, the assessment will be done on the basis that the defendant failed to take reasonable care when conducting his action close to the public space. The third element of negligence is causation, which requires the plaintiff to prove the cause of injury or damage was due to action taken by the defendant. In the case, causation can be proved since the defendant’s action of hitting the golf ball hard resulted in Paula getting injured, which would not have happened if Geoffrey had not hit the golf ball. Lastly, the plaintiff will have to prove the element of damage, which provides that the defendant’s actions resulted in the plaintiff’s injury. Damage could be proved by Paula obtaining the medical records of the medical services received following the incidence.
If Paula files a negligence claim against Geoffrey, she will file in the civil court. The civil court holds cases that are stipulated in the civil law. Cases handled in the civil court typically involve conflicts between people and institutions concerning legal duties and responsibilities own to each other. Although the civil court handles legal claims, it differs from the criminal court in various ways. The civil court and the criminal court’s differences are that the civil court handles cases within the civil law such as tort claims, breach of contract claims, equitable claims, and landlord/tenant disputes.
On the other hand, the criminal court handles cases under criminal laws such as assault, murder, rape, and robbery (Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York, 2020). The other difference between the two courts is that in the criminal court, the government is responsible of filing cases against a person who committed a crime or the defendant, where else in the civil court, a person or an institution sues against another person or institution due to dispute between them. In the criminal court, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty, with the defendant being sent to jail or prison if found guilty. However, if one loses a case brought against them in the civil court, they might be ordered to pay for the damages caused.
References
Laws. (2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers). A Brief Overview of Tort Law. Retrieved from https://tort.laws.com/tort-law
Legal Aid Society of Northeastern New York. (2020). The Differences between Criminal Court and Civil Court. Legal Help. Retrieved from https://www.lawhelp.org/resource/the-differences-between-criminal-court-and-ci
Sember, B. (2019: 2024 – Online Assignment Homework Writing Help Service By Expert Research Writers). Differences between Defamation, Slander, and Libel. Legal Zoom. Retrieved from https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/differences-between-defamation-slander-and-libel

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