Liability Without Fault in the Criminal Law Liability without fault is a circumstance in which the defendant is held criminally liable for his actions even though criminal intent is absent. There are two kinds of liability without fault , strict liability and vicarious liability. Was this document helpful?
Share it with your network! The Best Lawyers For Less. Talk to a Top Lawyer for Free. Trusted By. Content Approved by UpCounsel. Related Articles. Liability is strict with exceptions. Liability is absolute without any exception. Ordinary and compensatory. Exemplary damages depending upon the size of the organisation. But with the change of time and circumstances, the applicability of this principle was needed to be amended according to the needs of the people because in many of the cases, where the plaintiff was worth compensation for his damages, was not granted compensation on the basis of the rule of strict liability.
Since the law needs to be amended with the evolution, the concept of absolute liability was introduced with no exceptions or defences i.
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Powered by iPleaders. Register now Name. Specify Occupation. I want to know more about the lawsikho courses Yes. Thank you for registering for the workshop. Do not forget to star that email, so it does not get misplaced. Basis of distinction. Horder takes the position that courts should deliberate on whether the result of strict liability is of a high enough value for the principle of individual autonomy to give way to it.
Technical development is rapidly bringing about an increasing number of objects and activities which pose greater-than-normal dangers to third parties. However, what distinguishes a special threat from a normal one is not always obvious. Thus it can be noted that the necessity of both fault-based liability as well as strict liability can be relatively successfully justified. Before presenting the final conclusions, the problem in question will also be analysed from the viewpoint of legal economy as well as the philosophical viewpoint.
The discussion on the justifiability of fault-based liability or strict liability in terms of legal economy is, in summary, a matter of which of those liability forms is so to say economically less costly. Thus R. Cooter and T. Ulen also assert that the economic purpose of delictual liability is to minimise the instruments used to prevent damage and damage in total. Thus we have to reduce the set of social costs made up by the expenses of preventing the damage, those of the damage itself and the administrative expenses.
Cane is of the position that individuals take decisions on whether and to what extent expenses on preventing damage should be incurred on the basis of whether or not the expenses caused by damage will exceed those of preventing the damage. In the opinion of P. Cane, the strictness of liability does not remarkably alter the general level of safety in a society. Prosser, too, has found that in general, there is no basis for choosing between strict liability and fault-based liability, as regards the prevention of accidents.
This position is opposed by G. Williams, who finds that since the law of delict is aimed at, inter alia , the prevention of damage, it is the strict liability that specifically assists to the fulfilment of this aim. Rabin, who offers an interesting example: if liability were fault-based, a car driver would decide on how much to drive only on the basis of how much he would like to do it.
However, things would be different in the case of strict liability. Since the driver would have to compensate for any damage from an accident, he should decide on the activity of his driving. Insofar as strict liability also has an impact on the activity of individuals, it can also reduce the total costs of damage.
Nonetheless, we have to keep in mind the fact that legal economy is not aimed at making the society safer but at judging which regulation will be less costly in summary. In other words, if damage itself is less costly than its prevention, legal economists will let the damage happen without worry. All in all, the question of whether to prefer fault-based or strict liability is reducible to the question of who should sustain the damage caused by accidents.
In fault-based liability, such costs have been left to be borne by the aggrieved party. Perry, this is the very reason why fault-based liability is not economically justifiable: if the tortfeasor can use the excuse that due care was exercised in respect of the aggrieved party, it follows that the tortfeasor can enjoy the income from an activity but the expenses of such activity are left to be sustained by another person. On the one hand, a person driving a car enjoys his or her activity, but on the other hand, motor vehicles are beneficial to the entire society.
The situation is similar in the case of producer liability: it cannot be said that benefits of the product are enjoyed only by the producer as they are also enjoyed by the consumers. Costs of administration must also be taken into account, as regards the economic aspect of the regulation by the law of delict. In reality, the insurance system is also of significant importance in the described discussion since a material portion of damage costs is actually sustained by insurance.
Rabin is of the position that strict liability has the effect of forcing the tortfeasor to insure its liability. However, Rabin finds it difficult to confirm whether it is actually so.
Hence, it can be concluded on the above basis that given the costs of preventing damage, the costs of damage itself and the administrative costs as well as taking account of the total amount of such costs, the system of strict liability seems to be the more justified one in economic terms.
Norms of the law of delict must be automatically acceptable to the people, otherwise there will be difficulties in implementing those provisions. Naturally, for that purpose, an answer should first be provided to the question of what kind of regulation is fair. By the Aristotelian approach, fairness in the general sense and in the individual sense can be treated as distinct.
As regards fairness in the general sense, there are two concepts: legality and equality. Fair means legal, equal and honest; unfair means illegal, unequal or dishonest.
With regard to individual fairness, there are also two distinguishable aspects: the fairness of distribution and the corrective justice. The fairness of distribution is applicable to the distribution of social values e. If a person has forfeited his or her share to another person, he or she has a claim against that other person. One of the most important developers of the theory of corrective justice, R.
The theory is based on the idea that all humans have a right to autonomy and interventions with this freedom are acceptable only if damage from the exercise of this freedom is suffered by a third party. On moral considerations, the tortfeasor must put the aggrieved party in the situation which would have prevailed if the damage had not occurred.
In the opinion of S. Perry, strict liability is the form of delictual liability compatible with the concept of corrective justice. If the tortfeasor causes damage to the aggrieved party, the tortfeasor must compensate for the damage even if the risks taken by the tortfeasor were reasonable. Such an approach to fairness seems to be in favour of fault-based liability or even a subjective standard of fault.
The nature of fairness has been analysed by several other authors, including e. On the basis of the above-presented analysis, it can be concluded that the question of strictness of liability or, more exactly, of whether fault-based or strict liability should dominate in the law of delict, is intriguing and interesting. At the same time this question cannot be answered on the basis of what has been presented: namely, there are only a few authors who unconditionally favour one or the other form.
Otherwise, economic activity would be unreasonably obstructed as well. Thus, the author is of the opinion that unless dealing with a source of greater danger which can cause damage regardless of the care exercised by the person, fault-based liability should be regarded as appropriate. At the same time, the author admits that fault-based liability is inappropriate in some spheres of activity. Damage caused by accidents should be borne by the keeper of the source of greater danger because he or she can decide whether and how to keep, use or handle that source of greater danger.
Establishment of strict liability cannot be justified only by stating that persons can insure their liability. This would, however, lead to a situation in which persons do not insure their liability and their freedom to act would still be restricted in an unreasonable manner. Since the beginning of the 19 th century, the law of delict has been developing in one important direction: protection of the aggrieved party has been increasing in the regulations of liability.
It is obvious that these developments imply the domination of strict liability in the future. However, the complete replacement of fault-based liability by strict liability will not yet take place in the near future.
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