10 Solved Problems (IRAC Method) — Law of Torts

These ten problems are worked in the IRAC method — Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion — the way an exam answer sheet expects. They span all five units; the full Question Bank has 40+ more.

Problem 1 — The Wrongfully Detained MLA (Unit I)

Problem: An MLA is wrongfully detained by police on his way to an Assembly session and is not produced before a magistrate within the required period. Which legal right is violated? Advise him.

I — Issue. Whether an action lies where a legal right has been violated but no measurable financial loss has been suffered.

R — Rule. Injuria sine damno — the violation of a legal right is actionable per se, without proof of damage, because the law presumes damage from the invasion of the right (Ashby v White, 1703). False imprisonment is the total restraint of liberty without lawful justification, and is likewise actionable per se. In India the Supreme Court awards compensation directly under Article 32 for such a violation (Bhim Singh v State of J&K, 1985).

A — Analysis. The MLA’s rights to personal liberty and to attend the legislature were both invaded. The detention was without lawful justification, and the failure to produce him before a magistrate within the required period compounds it. The decoy is the absence of any money loss — he was not fined, he lost no property. That is irrelevant: this is precisely the injuria sine damno situation, and Bhim Singh is on all fours, the plaintiff there being an MLA detained on his way to an Assembly session.

C — Conclusion. He succeeds. The violated rights are personal liberty (Art. 21/22) and the right to attend the House; the remedies are damages for false imprisonment in a civil suit, or exemplary compensation under Article 32 — ₹50,000 was awarded in Bhim Singh itself.

Problem 2 — The Neighbour’s Dried-Up Well (Unit I)

Problem: X digs a well on his own land for his farm; as a result the water in his neighbour Y’s well dries up. Can Y sue?

I — Issue. Whether a landowner is liable for loss caused to a neighbour by the lawful use of his own land.

R — Rule. Damnum sine injuria — damage suffered without the violation of any legal right gives no cause of action. There is no right of property in percolating underground water before it is appropriated, so a landowner may intercept it by lawful excavation (Chasemore v Richards, 1859).

A — Analysis. X did on his own land what he was entitled to do — sink a well for his farm. Y’s loss is real and provable, and that is the decoy: the drying up of a well is a serious and measurable harm. But Y had no legal right to the continued flow of percolating water beneath X’s soil, so no injuria has occurred. It is worth noting what would change the result. If Y had acquired a prescriptive right to the flow — for instance, an easement over a defined surface stream running through X’s land, enjoyed openly and uninterruptedly for the statutory period — then X’s interference would invade a legal right and would be actionable. The rule turns entirely on the absence of any right in percolating water, which flows in no defined channel and belongs to nobody until captured.

C — Conclusion. Y fails. The loss is damnum sine injuria. The answer would be the same even if X had acted out of pure spite, since a lawful act does not become unlawful through a bad motive (Bradford Corporation v Pickles, 1895).

Problem 3 — The Drunk Driver’s Passenger (Unit II)

Problem: A passenger, knowing the driver of the car is drunk, chooses to travel in it. The driver’s negligence causes an accident in which she is injured. Can she claim compensation?

I — Issue. Whether knowledge of a risk amounts to consent to run it, so as to defeat the claim entirely.

R — Rule. Volenti non fit injuria requires knowledge and free consent to bear the risk. Mere knowledge is scienti, not volenti, and is not a defence (Smith v Baker & Sons, 1891). A passenger who knew the driver was drunk was held not volens in Dann v Hamilton (1939); the appropriate response is contributory negligence, which reduces damages rather than defeating the claim.

A — Analysis. She knew of the risk — that is the decoy the examiner has planted, and it looks like a complete answer. But knowledge alone does not establish that she agreed to waive her right to sue for the driver’s negligence. Nothing in the facts shows an agreement to bear the risk.

C — Conclusion. She recovers, subject to a reduction for contributory negligence. Note the limit: if the danger were extreme and obvious — helping a man into the car who could barely stand — a court might well find a genuine acceptance of the risk.

Problem 4 — The Army Vehicle Accident (Unit II)

Problem: An army vehicle collides with a private car through the negligence of the army driver, seriously injuring a passenger, who sues the Government. Decide.

I — Issue. Whether the State is vicariously liable for the negligence of its driver.

R — Rule. The State is liable for torts committed in the discharge of non-sovereign functions, and not for those in the exercise of sovereign powers (P&O Steam Navigation, 1861). Driving a Government vehicle on an ordinary journey is not a sovereign function (State of Rajasthan v Vidyawati, 1962), and sovereign immunity has since been confined to a very narrow class (N. Nagendra Rao v State of A.P., 1994).

A — Analysis. The decoy is that the vehicle belonged to the army, which invites the plea of sovereign function. The label attaches to the function, not the owner: an army vehicle on a routine journey is doing what any private employer’s vehicle does. Only if the vehicle had been engaged in an actual operation of defence would the plea have force. Vidyawati is directly in point, and Kasturi Lal is distinguishable, since nothing here was done under a statutory power of seizure.

C — Conclusion. The Government is liable for the driver’s negligence. The passenger may alternatively claim before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal under the Motor Vehicles Act (Unit 5).

Problem 5 — The Cricket Ball Over the Fence (Unit III)

Problem: The plaintiff, standing on a highway adjoining a cricket ground, is struck by a ball hit out of the ground. Balls had very rarely cleared the fence before. Is the club liable?

I — Issue. Does a defendant breach his duty of care merely because the harm that occurred was, in the abstract, foreseeable?

R — Rule. Duty and breach are separate questions. Breach is measured by the reasonable man, and the reasonable man weighs the magnitude of the risk — its likelihood together with the seriousness of the possible harm — against the cost of guarding against it. A risk so small that a reasonable man would disregard it is not a breach. Bolton v Stone (1951): a ball was hit out of a cricket ground and struck a woman on the road. The ground had been used for ninety years; balls had been hit over the fence about six times in thirty years and had never hurt anyone. The House of Lords held there was no negligence — the possibility of injury was foreseeable, but the chance was so slight that the club was not bound to take precautions or to stop playing.

A — Analysis. The facts are on all fours. Balls had cleared the fence only very rarely, and the club had fenced the ground. The decoy is the word “foreseeable”: the club could of course foresee that a ball might one day clear the fence — that is why the fence exists. But foreseeability in the abstract establishes only that a duty exists; it does not establish that the duty was broken.

C — Conclusion. The club is not liable. The result would be different if balls had been going over regularly and the club had done nothing, for then the risk would be real rather than fanciful, and the cheapness of a higher fence would make the failure a breach.

Problem 6 — The Collapsing Clock Tower (Unit III)

Problem: A hundred-year-old clock tower in a busy street, exclusively under the control of the corporation, collapses and causes death and injury. Its normal life expectancy was sixty years. There is no direct proof of negligent maintenance. Advise the victims.

I — Issue. Can the victims succeed in negligence when they cannot prove how the tower came to fall?

R — Rule. The maxim res ipsa loquitur applies where (i) the thing causing the harm was under the exclusive control of the defendant, (ii) the accident is such as does not ordinarily happen if proper care is used, and (iii) there is no explanation. It permits the court to infer negligence and calls on the defendant to explain (Scott v London & St. Katherine Docks Co., 1865). Where the defendant offers no explanation consistent with due care, the inference stands.

A — Analysis. The tower was in the exclusive control of the corporation; nobody else could inspect or maintain it. Clock towers standing in busy streets do not ordinarily collapse if properly maintained. Its age — a hundred years against a normal life of sixty — made periodical expert inspection plainly necessary, and the corporation cannot say it did not know its own tower’s age. The decoy is the absence of direct proof of neglect: the victims cannot show which inspection was skipped. That is exactly the situation the maxim exists for.

C — Conclusion. The victims will succeed. This is Municipal Corporation of Delhi v Subhagwanti (1966) on materially similar facts — the reported tower was about eighty years old against a normal life of about forty-five, where the problem gives a hundred against sixty. The difference in figures is immaterial: the ratio turns on the tower having outlived its expected life under the Corporation’s exclusive control, not on any particular number of years.

Problem 7 — The Rats from the Bone Manure (Unit III)

Problem: The defendants manufacture bone manure. Heaps of bones attract large numbers of rats, which go onto the plaintiff’s land and eat his corn. Is the defendant liable under Rylands v Fletcher?

I — Issue. Is an occupier strictly liable for damage done by wild creatures attracted onto his land by something he lawfully keeps there?

R — Rule. Rylands v Fletcher requires that the defendant bring on and collect a dangerous thing, that it escape, and that the user be non-natural. The rule applies to what the defendant accumulates, not to what nature brings.

A — Analysis. The defendants brought bones — an ordinary raw material of a lawful trade — onto their own land. They did not bring the rats; the rats came of their own accord, and rats are ferae naturae, over which the defendants had no ownership or control. There was therefore no “thing brought and collected” which escaped. The decoy is the plaintiff’s loss, which is real, traceable and clearly connected to the defendants’ heaps. Stearn v Prentice Bros [1919] decided exactly this and held the defendants not liable, in nuisance as well as under Rylands. The nuisance claim failed on causation: the business had been carried on unchanged for some thirty years and the heaps were no larger than before, so the plaintiff could not show that the increase in rats was due to anything the defendants had done.

C — Conclusion. The defendants are not liable. Note the ground carefully — the nuisance limb failed for want of proof of causation, not because a useful trade is immune from nuisance. Social utility is no defence to nuisance (see Shelfer and the locality rule): a manufacturer whose rats were proved to be the source, and who could have taken cheap precautions, would be in a very different position.

Problem 8 — The Advancing Clenched Fists (Unit IV)

Problem: A is chairman at a parish meeting. B, sitting several seats away, is unruly; on a resolution to eject him he says he would rather pull A out of the chair, and advances towards A with clenched fists, but is stopped by a warden before reaching him. Has B committed a wrong?

I — Issue. Is there an assault where the defendant is prevented from reaching the plaintiff and no contact ever occurs?

R — Rule. Assault is an act which causes the plaintiff reasonable apprehension of the immediate infliction of a battery. Contact is not required — if it occurred there would be a battery. What is required is that the defendant have the apparent present ability to carry out the threat, so that the apprehension is reasonable. Stephens v Myers (1830): on materially identical facts, a defendant at a parish meeting advanced on the chairman with a clenched fist, saying he would rather pull him out of the chair, and was stopped by the churchwarden. Tindal CJ held it an assault — he was advancing with an intention to strike and would have carried it out but for the intervention.

A — Analysis. B’s words announced an intention to lay hands on A. He then advanced with clenched fists, so the threat was accompanied by action, not left as words. He was near enough that, had the warden not intervened, he would have reached A within moments — so A’s apprehension of immediate violence was entirely reasonable. The decoy is the interruption: B never touched A, and was stopped. That defeats a claim in battery, not in assault; indeed the intervention is proof of how imminent the contact was.

C — Conclusion. B has committed an assault, which is actionable per se, so A recovers without proving any damage. Contrast Tuberville v Savage (1669), where the defendant laid his hand on his sword but said “if it were not assize-time, I would not take such language from you” — there the words negatived the threat and there was no assault.

Problem 9 — Locked In While Asleep (Unit IV)

Problem: Shyam is fast asleep. Prem locks the room from outside and reopens it before Shyam wakes. Is Prem liable for false imprisonment?

I — Issue. Is knowledge of the restraint essential to the tort of false imprisonment?

R — Rule. False imprisonment is the total restraint of a person’s liberty, for however short a time, without lawful justification. Knowledge of the restraint is not an essential. In Meering v Grahame-White Aviation Co. (1919) the plaintiff was asked to wait in a room while a theft was investigated, not knowing that works police had been posted outside to prevent his leaving. Atkin LJ held it false imprisonment, observing that a person may be imprisoned “while he is asleep, while he is in a state of drunkenness, while he is unconscious, and while he is a lunatic”. The tort is complete on the restraint; knowledge goes to the amount of damages, not to liability. Duration is immaterial — the restraint may be brief, since the tort is actionable per se.

A — Analysis. Locking the room from outside was a total restraint: Shyam had no means of egress at all, and this is not a Bird v Jones case of partial obstruction with a route left open. It was without any lawful justification — no arrest, no court order, no necessity. Prem’s act was deliberate. The decoy is Shyam’s ignorance: he slept through it, suffered no fright, lost no appointment, and by the time he woke the door was open. That feels like a wrong without a victim.

C — Conclusion. Prem is liable for false imprisonment. Because the tort is actionable per se, Shyam recovers without proving damage — but the damages will be nominal, since he suffered neither indignity, nor loss, nor even the knowledge of confinement. Compare Bhim Singh v State of J&K (1985), where a wrongful detention accompanied by a deliberate abuse of power attracted ₹50,000 in exemplary damages.

Problem 10 — The Insect in the Soft Drink (Unit V)

Problem: A purchaser buys a soft drink from a retail shop and finds an insect in it while drinking. Advise him.

I — Issue. Does a consumer have a remedy where the goods are of trivial value but the defect is serious?

R — Rule. A person who buys goods for consideration for his own use is a consumer under s.2(7). A “defect” under s.2(10) is any fault, imperfection or shortcoming in the quality, quantity, potency, purity or standard required by law or contract. Pecuniary jurisdiction is determined by the consideration paid, and the District Commission takes claims up to the prescribed limit — which places even the smallest claim within the system. The Commission may award, apart from refund, compensation for loss or injury and, in an appropriate case, punitive damages under s.39.

A — Analysis. The buyer paid for the drink, so he is a consumer. An insect in a sealed bottle is a defect in purity beyond argument, and also breaches food-safety standards. The bottle reached him in the form in which it left the bottling plant, so the manufacturer as well as the retailer is answerable, the manufacturer under s.84 for a manufacturing defect. If he drank part of it and fell ill, the illness is “harm”; if he did not, he still has the defect. The decoy is the trifling price of a soft drink, which invites the answer that the law will not concern itself with such small matters — de minimis. The CP Act was made precisely for small claims, and the forum is cheap and lawyer-free.

C — Conclusion. He should complain to the District Commission where he resides, within two years, naming both the manufacturer and the retailer. He may seek refund of the price, compensation for any illness and for mental agony, punitive damages given the public-health character of the defect, an order to discontinue the practice, and costs.

📄 Full Law of Torts notes + Question Bank (₹199) — the complete study notes plus 40+ more solved problems and 16-mark essay blueprints. Get the bundle · All Law of Torts topics · Past Questions