An assessment of a legal case study, dealing with liability and the difficulties of assessing psychological injury in terms of causation and liability. Bibliography lists 3 sources
Name of Research Paper File: JL5_JLcase2.rtf
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liability in the case study, such as the extent to which Penny and/ or Anne might be said to have contributed to their injuries and the difficulties of assessing psychological
injury. For example, there appears to be no indication of provocation on Pennys part, as regards the response from Derek: whether or not she had a boyfriend at the disco,
saying that she had is not sufficient to justify the threatening and violent reaction from Derek, even if he was annoyed at apparently being told a lie.
In addition, it would not be reasonable to assert that Penny should
have foreseen the kind of consequences which might result from telling such a lie: the average person would not expect such a disproportionate response to what is, basically, as polite
excuse for rejecting someones unwelcome advances. It would appear from the description in the case study that Derek has physically attacked Penny in some way by the time Anne returns,
since "hearing a scuffle" is mentioned - it is not clear, however, whether Penny or Derek has initiated this "scuffle". Given Dereks later actions, it would appear that he is
considerably stronger and more powerful than Penny, which would indicate that even if Penny had struck first, the discrepancy in size and weight between the two of them would make
it unlikely that such a blow would cause any serious injury.
Dereks reaction to Anne is, again, disproportionate to any provocation which might be alleged: her verbal statement that she will call the police (a reasonable comment, under the circumstances)