⚡ 10-Second Rule
You owe carefulness to people who could predictably get hurt by what you do — and usually nobody else.
🧒 ELI-10 Scene
Dev throws a frisbee at a crowded park. He must watch out for kids running nearby. They could obviously get hit. He doesn't have to worry about a man three blocks away. No throw could reach him. Now flip it. Dev sees a stranger's kite stuck in a tree. He can walk past. He never promised to help. But Coach Rivera can't walk past her own swim team. She signed up to watch them. Choosing the job creates the duty.
⚖️ Actual Rule
A defendant owes a duty of reasonable care to foreseeable plaintiffs — those within the zone of danger created by the conduct. In Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339 (1928), Judge Cardozo's majority held that "The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed." Judge Andrews's dissent would extend a duty to everyone, leaving foreseeability to proximate cause; the Cardozo view is the majority and exam default.
There is generally no duty to act affirmatively to help or rescue another (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314). Exceptions create a duty: a special relationship such as common carrier–passenger, innkeeper–guest, business–customer, or custodian–ward (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 314A); a defendant whose own conduct — even innocent conduct — placed the plaintiff in peril (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 322); and a defendant who voluntarily undertakes a rescue or service, who must then perform it with reasonable care and not leave the plaintiff worse off (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 323).
Special standards replace the ordinary reasonable-person yardstick. A child is held to the care of a reasonable child of like age, intelligence, and experience, unless engaged in an adult activity such as driving (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 283A). Professionals must exercise the knowledge and skill of an average member of the profession in good standing. For land entrants, the traditional trichotomy remains the exam default: invitees (entrants for the possessor's business or land open to the public) get reasonable inspection plus repair or warning; licensees (social guests and others with permission) get warnings of known hidden dangers; trespassers get, at most, warnings of known artificial death traps once discovered or anticipated. Child trespassers get reasonable care against artificial conditions that foreseeably attract them — the attractive nuisance doctrine (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339). A substantial and growing number of courts have replaced the trichotomy with a unified reasonable-care standard for all entrants except flagrant trespassers (Restatement (Third) of Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm § 51); answer with the trichotomy unless the question signals the unified approach. [NJ-VARIANT: flagged for future Eli Explains NJ Law module]
ELI-10 translation: be careful around people your actions could predictably hurt; helping strangers is optional unless a relationship, your own mess, or a started rescue makes it mandatory.
🔍 Ask These Questions
- Was the plaintiff foreseeable — inside the zone of danger? (Could a careful person guess someone standing there might get hurt?)
- Is the claim about doing something badly or doing nothing? (Careless action almost always carries a duty; pure sitting-still usually doesn't.)
- If pure inaction, does an exception apply — special relationship, defendant created the peril, or a started rescue? (Being the lifeguard, causing the mess, or starting to help makes helping mandatory.)
- Does a special standard replace the ordinary one — child, professional, adult activity? (Kids get measured against kids, doctors against doctors, but a kid driving a car gets measured like an adult.)
- Is the defendant a land possessor? Classify the entrant first. (Paying shoppers get the most protection, dinner guests less, sneak-ins the least.)
- Is the entrant a child trespasser near a tempting artificial danger? (Pools and machines that lure kids demand extra care.)
⚠️ Bar Trap
Exam language: Examiners describe a bystander who callously fails to rescue and bait you toward liability on sympathy alone — the correct answer is usually "no duty," unless the facts quietly trigger an exception: the defendant caused the peril, began the rescue, or stood in a special relationship. The mirror trap is premises liability: a social guest is a licensee, not an invitee, no matter how warmly invited.
ELI-10: Feeling that someone should have helped is not the rule. Hunt for the hidden trigger — a job, a started rescue, or a mess the defendant made. And a dinner guest never counts as a customer.
🧪 Question
An accountant walking along a river trail heard a swimmer shouting for help in the current. The accountant waded in, gripped the swimmer's arm, and began pulling her toward shore. Two kayakers paddling nearby saw the rescue underway and continued downstream. Halfway to the bank, the accountant remembered a meeting, released the swimmer in deep water, and left. The swimmer, exhausted and now beyond the kayakers' reach, suffered serious injuries before another passerby pulled her out. The swimmer sued the accountant for negligence.
Is the swimmer likely to prevail?
(A) No, because the accountant had no duty to rescue a stranger. (B) No, because a volunteer rescuer is immune from liability for a failed rescue. (C) Yes, because anyone who sees another in mortal peril must render aid. (D) Yes, because once the accountant undertook the rescue, he was required to proceed with reasonable care and not leave the swimmer worse off.
Answer: (D). There was no initial duty to rescue, but the accountant's voluntary undertaking created one: he had to act reasonably and could not abandon the swimmer in a worse position — deep water, after would-be rescuers saw an apparent rescue underway and continued on.
💡 Why the Wrong Answers Are Wrong
- (A) states the right starting rule but ignores that a voluntary undertaking is a classic exception that creates a duty once rescue begins.
- (B) invents blanket immunity; the law is the opposite — a volunteer who starts must use reasonable care, and Good Samaritan statutes do not appear in these facts.
- (C) states a general duty to rescue that the common law rejects; peril alone never obligates a stranger.
- ELI-10: The misconception is thinking the no-help rule ends the story. Starting to help flips the switch — quitting halfway and leaving someone worse is the breach.
