MBE Trap: Negligence

In a negligence question, the fact that someone is harmed provides you with potential damages, but does not provide you with a reason to conclude anything about liability. This is so even if the person harmed is a child, or the elderly, or however else the test writers want to try to pull on your emotional strings.

Damages is a necessary condition of a claim for negligence, but it's not a sufficient condition. (As an aside, it's interesting how this type of logical reasoning that you might remember from the LSAT plays into the MBE quite often.) When you see in a negligence question terrible harm caused to a vulnerable person, make sure that there's at least some degree of fault on the part of the person sued. And then make sure that the elements of causation are satisfied. Then, it's fair to make a conclusion