Negligence per se from a violated statute
Establish that the plaintiff is in the protected class and the harm is of the type the statute addressed, then treat excuse and the effect on breach versus duty.
1L Doctrinal
Torts
Intentional torts, negligence, causation, damages, defenses, and strict and products liability.
Overview
Torts Overview
Torts is the law of civil wrongs and the allocation of accident costs. The course runs from intentional torts with precise element lists, through the open-textured negligence framework, to strict and products liability where fault drops out.
Negligence dominates most exams. Duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages are simple to recite and difficult to apply, because each element hides a contested standard: foreseeability of the plaintiff, the reasonable person under the circumstances, and the scope of the risk.
Fact patterns usually involve several potential plaintiffs and defendants and an accident with multiple contributing causes. The scored skill is running every plausible pairing rather than settling on the obvious one.
Topics
Topics You Can Practice
These are the Torts doctrines available in the Exam Builder. Pick one to generate a hypo focused on it, or combine several.
Intentional Torts
Battery, assault, false imprisonment, trespass to land and chattels, conversion, IIED, and the transferred intent doctrine.
Practice Intentional TortsNegligence: Duty
Foreseeable plaintiffs under Palsgraf, special relationships, affirmative duties to act, landowner categories, and negligent infliction.
Practice Negligence: DutyNegligence: Breach
The reasonable person standard, custom, statutory negligence per se, res ipsa loquitur, and the Hand formula.
Practice Negligence: BreachCausation
But-for cause, substantial factor with multiple sufficient causes, alternative liability, and proximate cause and intervening acts.
Practice CausationDamages
Compensatory damages, pain and suffering, the eggshell plaintiff, punitive damages, and joint and several liability with contribution.
Practice DamagesDefenses
Comparative and contributory negligence, assumption of risk, consent, self-defense, necessity, and immunities.
Practice DefensesStrict Liability
Abnormally dangerous activities, animals, and the limits of strict liability including scope of the risk.
Practice Strict LiabilityProducts Liability
Manufacturing, design, and warning defects, the consumer expectation and risk-utility tests, and who is in the distribution chain.
Practice Products LiabilityGrading reality
What Torts Exams Test
Issue spotting is the entry fee. Points separate on rule precision, factual application, competing arguments, and the way the answer is organised.
Complete pairings
Every plaintiff against every defendant on every viable theory. Professors allocate points across pairings, and the most common way to lose them is to analyse only the obvious claim.
Breach argued from facts
Breach is the most fact-intensive element. Strong answers deploy the hypo's specifics — the speed, the warning sign, the prior complaints — rather than asserting unreasonableness.
Proximate cause as a scope question
Intervening criminal acts, rescuers, and unusual injuries are the standard tests of whether the harm fell within the risk that made the conduct negligent.
Defenses and apportionment
Comparative fault, assumption of risk, and joint and several liability with contribution usually carry meaningful points at the end of the question.
Exam strategy
- Build a plaintiff-by-defendant grid before writing and write to the grid.
- Use a separate heading for each pairing so the grader can find your analysis.
- Spend the most words on breach and proximate cause, which are the fact-hungry elements.
- Raise defenses under each claim rather than in one block at the end.
- Close with apportionment, because that is where many rubrics place the final points.
Issue library
Common Torts Exam Issues
The fact patterns below recur across Torts finals. Each one names the doctrine, the trigger, and the analysis a grader expects.
Duty to control or protect a third party
Look for a special relationship, an undertaking, or a defendant-created risk before finding an affirmative duty, and address foreseeability of the criminal act.
Multiple sufficient causes
Where two fires or two impacts would each have caused the harm, the but-for test fails and the substantial factor test applies. Alternative liability shifts the burden where only one of two defendants caused indivisible harm.
Intervening criminal or medical conduct
Foreseeable intervening acts do not break the chain; superseding acts do. Negligent medical treatment following an injury is typically foreseeable.
Design defect in a consumer product
Choose between the consumer expectation and risk-utility tests, address a reasonable alternative design, and then run the separate warning-defect theory.
Typical issue combinations
Professors rarely test a doctrine alone. These pairings show up repeatedly.
- Negligence + negligence per se + comparative fault in a vehicle or premises accident
- Products liability + negligence + breach of warranty against a manufacturer and a retailer
- Intentional tort + transferred intent + IIED with a bystander plaintiff
- Premises liability + duty to protect against third-party crime + superseding cause
- Multiple defendants + joint and several liability + contribution and indemnity
Diagnostics
Common Mistakes
Each of these is fixable, and each is visible in a graded practice answer long before it shows up on a transcript.
Analysing only the main claim
Secondary plaintiffs and secondary defendants carry real point allocations and are routinely skipped under time pressure.
Practice this under timeMerging duty and breach
Duty is a legal question about whether a standard applies; breach is a factual question about whether it was met. Collapsing them costs rule-accuracy points.
Practice this under timeConclusory causation
'The injury would not have happened but for the defendant's conduct' without tracing the causal chain leaves the proximate cause discussion unearned.
Practice this under timeIgnoring damages
Eggshell plaintiffs, pure economic loss limits, and punitive damage standards are commonly tested and commonly omitted.
Practice this under timeThe loop
How Exam Sim Helps You Practice Torts
Exam Sim generates a fresh Torts hypo from your criteria, times your attempt, grades it against a hidden rubric, redlines your own sentences, and points you at the next session.
- 01Configure
- 02Fresh Hypo
- 03Timed Attempt
- 04Rubric Grading
- 05Redline
- 06Target Weaknesses
- 07Practice Again
EXAMPLE SCENARIO
The parking garage assault
A tenant is attacked in a garage with broken lighting and prior incidents. Tests premises liability, duty to protect against third-party crime, causation, and superseding cause.
EXAMPLE SCENARIO
The recalled appliance
A heater ignites after a known design issue, injuring the buyer and a neighbour. Tests design and warning defects, the distribution chain, negligence, and bystander recovery.
EXAMPLE SCENARIO
The chain-reaction collision
Three drivers, one statutory violation, and an injured passenger with a pre-existing condition. Tests negligence per se, multiple causation, eggshell plaintiff, and comparative apportionment.
FAQ
Torts practice questions, answered
- How should I study for a Torts final?
- Learn the element lists for the intentional torts cold, then spend most of your time practicing negligence application, because that is where exam points concentrate. Write full answers under time and check whether you covered every plaintiff-defendant pairing.
- What issues are commonly tested on Torts exams?
- Negligence duty and breach, negligence per se, res ipsa loquitur, actual and proximate cause with intervening acts, comparative fault and assumption of risk, premises liability, intentional torts with transferred intent, and products liability.
- How do I practice Torts issue spotting?
- Practice on accidents with several participants and several causes, because the skill being graded is completeness across pairings. Exam Sim generates fresh Torts hypos at your chosen difficulty and grades whether each viable claim and defense was identified and developed.
- How long should a Torts practice exam take?
- Sixty minutes for a standard essay, ten minutes for a focused drill on one element such as proximate cause, and three hours for a full final simulation with multiple parties.
- How does Exam Sim grade a Torts answer?
- Each hypo carries a hidden rubric of expected claims, defenses, and rule statements. You receive a grade band, dimension scores for issue spotting, rule accuracy, application, counterarguments, organisation, and clarity, plus anchored redline comments and a ranked list of what cost you points.
Explore Other Subjects
- Civil ProcedureJurisdiction, pleadings, joinder, discovery, and preclusion under the Federal Rules.
- Constitutional LawFederal power, separation of powers, equal protection, due process, and the First Amendment.
- ContractsFormation, defenses, performance, breach, and remedies under the common law and UCC Article 2.
- Criminal LawMens rea, homicide, inchoate crimes, accomplice liability, and justification and excuse defenses.
- PropertyEstates and future interests, concurrent ownership, leases, servitudes, and recording acts.
Ready to test your Torts knowledge?
Generate a fresh Torts exam, write it under realistic conditions, and see exactly where your analysis earns or loses points.
Start Torts Practice