B < PL

Since when did law school include Algebra? Our prof kept calling it "Calculus." I refrained from mentioning that it was technically stats because the equation deals with probability and not measurement of a parabola or asymptote.... aggh. And then it really messed me up because if it was a true stat, then P would technically be less than 1, which would decrease the size of L, and that's no good because as L decreases then it loses it's utility as a measurement of overall harm of injury, which in turn lessens the amount of burden required in order to establish responsibility of duty, and.....I need to stop now. I truly need to stop now because this is not heading any where useful.

Right now in Tort's we're focusing on Negligence. This week's series of assignments covered the concepts of "duty" and "standard of care." Duty is nicely (or not so nicely depending) summarized in the title of this post.

For those of you fellow Concord 1L's in the April cohort can you name the pieces of the equation, who developed it, how it has been amended by modern courts to make it more equitable, and the landmark case it was developed from?

For the non-1L's the answers are below.....

The Hand formula - developed by Judge Learned Hand

B = Burden of injury prevention; P = Probability of injury occurring; L = Injury (which is difficult to quantify)

It has been amended/interpreted by modern courts to look more like this:
BUPL = no duty exists. Where U is the benefit that is gained by the activity as opposed to the magnitude of an injury (L) if an injury were to occur.

Landmark case: United States v. Carroll Towing Company.

That pretty much summarizes this last week. Next week we're covering Res Ipsa Loquitur. I hope I understand it better than I pronounce it! (LOL)