floor by the cleaners in hotel.Her parents on behalf of her wishes to sue the hotel for negligence.According to their legal advisor,thre are four element tht must be proved in order to sue for negligence under Law of Tort.
Help me to discuss these elements.
CoachT
Duty, breach, causation, damages
Duty: First the cleaning staff/hotel must have some duty to inform people of wet floors. If society generally determines that maids should put wet floor signs up then there is probably a duty. In this example, that is generally the case. Ely's mom couldn't sue the resident of an adjoining room, for example. That person has no duty to warn Ely of wet floors. The hotel is responsible for training their staff though so she has a complaint against the hotel - they failed in their duty to train and supervise the maids.
Breach - simply means that there was a duty and someone didn't attend to it. If there was a sign up and Ely's mom didn't heed it - no breach. If there was no sign then the hotel will probably be found to have breached their duty.
Causation - the breach must then be the cause of the problem. If Ely fell down the stairs in another building - she can't very well claim that a maid not putting a wet floor sign up elsewhere was the cause. Even if the maid didn't put a wet floor sign up. The breach has to be the cause of the damages. (this part can get very complicated in some cases)
Damages - there has to be some result from the cause for there to be a tort of negligence. Otherwise it was simply potential negligence. So if the floor was wet and there wasn't a sign; but nobody slipped or got hurt - no damages. "I could have slipped..." isn't enough. "injured her leg" isn't enough information to determine damages but it's an indication that there are damages.
The hotel is going to try to defend in a couple ways:
They're going to argue that Ely's mom contributed to the damage because she has a duty to watch out for her child. They may also argue that "if you see the maid mopping the floor, it's obvious the floor is wet" and therefor no need for a sign.
They will make Ely's mom prove there was no sign (breach of duty) she has the burden to prove the negligence. The hotel will be advised to admit no wrong doing if they can avoid it without lying.
They might argue that the floor where she fell wasn't wet or that Ely's behavior at the time (such as running in the hall) was the cause and not the wet floor.
They may also simply offer to settle if they know they're wrong.
Orignal From: Tips: Ely is a 5 yr-old girl fell & injured her leg due to the failure of putting sign of slippery floor by the clea?
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