Yen Nguyen – Video 3 Summary

Negligence is one of the most common types of personal injury lawsuits and also a hard

area of law to define because it involves many complicated elements. Negligence is defined as a

failure to perform with the standard of care that are expected to be exercised amongst specified

circumstances. There are 4 main elements to consider when establishing a case of negligence.

The first one is duty to perform the standard of care. The second element is breach of that duty.

The third one is proximate cause. The final one is the actual damages to a person whom the

defendant owned a duty of care.

When the business has the duty of care toward the plaintiff, they are required to act in a

certain manner, often determined by law and similar business in the geographic area. Business

not only own duty of care to their guests, business invitees, employees but also trespasser until

the moment they engage in criminal activities. When the duty of care exists and the defendant

fails to exercise those reasonable care to other person, the defendant breaches the duty.

Furthermore, proximate cause is needed to fulfill a negligence case. The defendant liable for

harms that could have foreseen through their actions. Finally, it is not enough that the defendant

fails to exercise their duty of care, but the plaintiff needs to prove a legally recognized harm,

usually physical injury to make a negligence lawsuit.

In hospitality industry, accident or incident are unavoidable but managers can take

actions to reduce negligence risks that can happen in daily operation. The first exercise is

ongoing training. All the staff member needs to be aware of hotel principles about keeping every

safe in and out the property. Besides, safety policies should be written on paper and available for

both staff and guests. Sometimes, accountability procedures are needed to back up hotel policies

to make sure all the rules are followed. In addition to training, providing employees proper
equipment is also important. Video cameras, emergency equipment and action plans can help

prevent and prepare staffs for those accidents. Even though we do everything we can to prevent

accident happening in the property, but hotel still can be sued. Hiring a third party to visit hotel

and scan for potential threats is a good way to prepare and prevent negligence situations. Finally,

hotel should have insurance with hotel-specific provisions that will cover high legal costs.