Case Law Bonus Post: Motown Car Co v. Mink

Outline

• Recklessness in civil liability:
• Does not require showing that the actor consciously chose to disregard a known risk.
• Does require showing that the actor must have known or had reason to know of the underlying facts that created the risk.
• Civil recklessness may be shown by:
• Demonstrating that the actor knew or had reason to know of facts that created a high degree of risk of physical harm to another and then deliberately chose to act or refrain from acting in conscious disregard of that risk.
• Demonstrating that a reasonable person in the actor’s position would have appreciated the high degree of risk, regardless of whether the actor was herself consciously aware of, and consciously chose to disregard, the risk.

Notes
This case law clarifies another point about recklessness: what the plaintiff has to prove about what the defense knew and believed about the risks it created. They don’t have to prove that the defense’s agents actually consciously knew about and ignored the risks involved in their choices. The plaintiff only has to prove that they should have known. That’s a pretty substantial boon to the plaintiff when you think about it. Imagine how hard it would be to prove someone thought something. Sure, maybe you’d get lucky and they wrote it down and didn’t destroy it- but the defendant probably shouldn’t get away with taking major risks just because there’s no paper trail. They should have known about those risks, and that’s good enough.