I.

PROXIMATE CAUSE

An act which, in a natural, direct (continuous), and uninterrupted sequence produces an injury, and without
such cause the injury would not have occurred.

And more comprehensively, the proximate legal cause is that acting first and producing the injury, either
immediately or by setting other events in motion, all constituting a natural and continuous chain of events.

II. ATTRACTIVE NUISANCE

One who maintains on his premises dangerous instrumentalities or appliances of a character likely to attract
children in play, and who fails to exercise ordinary care to prevent children from playing therewith, is liable for
the injury of such child of tender years, even if the child is technically a trespasser.

American Jurisprudence shows us that the attractive nuisance doctrine generally is not applicable to bodies of water,
artificial (e.g. water tanks) or natural, in the absence of some unusual condition or artificial feature other than the mere
water and its location.

III. DAMNUM ABSQUE INJURIA (loss without injury)

A person which causes damage or loss to another, but does not injure them; a loss for which the law provides
no means of recovery

Injury - legal invasion of a legal right

Damage - the hurt, loss or harm which results from the injury

BPI Card Corp vs CA: There can be damage without injury where the loss or harm is not the result of a violation
of a legal duty.

There is a material distinction between damages and injury. Injury is the illegal invasion of a legal right; damage
is the loss, hurt, or harm which results from the injury; and damages are compensation awarded for the damage
suffered. Thus, there can be damage without injury in those instances in which the loss or harm was not the
result of a violation of a legal duty.

IV. ASSUMPTION OF RISK (defense)

An affirmative defense that the plaintiff cannot receive compensation for injuries from the defendant because
the plaintiff freely and knowingly assumed the risk of injury.

It bars or reduces a plaintiff's right to recovery against the defendant if the latter can demonstrate that the
plaintiff voluntarily and knowingly assumed the risks and dangers which were inherent to the activity he was
participating in.

A defense in a negligence case, in which the defendant claims that the situation was so inherently or obviously
hazardous that the injured plaintiff should have known there was danger and took the chance that he could be
injured.
V. LAST CLEAR CHANCE (employed in contributory negligence)

(Generally, neither can recover in contributory negligence). A negligent plaintiff can nonetheless recover if he is
able to show that the defendant had the last opportunity to avoid the accident.

It excuses or negates the effect of the plaintiffs contributory negligence and permits him or her to recover
damages regardless of his or her own lack of ordinary care.

The rule of last clear chance operates when the plaintiff negligently enters into an area of danger from which the
person cannot extricate himself or herself. The defendant has the final opportunity to prevent the harm that the
plaintiff otherwise will suffer. The doctrine was formulated to relieve the severity of the application of the
contributory negligence rule against the plaintiff, which completely bars any recovery if the person was at all
negligent.

VI. EMERGENCY RULE (defense)

Under this rule, one who suddenly finds himself in a place of danger, and is required to act without time to
consider the best means that may be adopted to avoid the impending danger, is not guilty of negligence, if he
fails to adopt what subsequently and upon reflection may appear to have been a better method, unless the
emergency in which he finds himself was by his own negligence.

VII. CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE (defense)

A doctrine in law that if a person was injured in part due to his own negligence (his negligence "contributed" to
the accident), the injured party would not be entitled to damages from the other party who supposedly caused
the accident.

Under this rule, a badly injured person who was only slightly negligent could not win in court against a very
negligent defendant.

VIII. RES IPSA LOQUITUR (the thing speaks for itself) (rule of evidence)

One is presumed to be negligent if he had exclusive control of whatever caused the injury even though there is
no specific evidence of an act of negligence, and without negligence the accident would not have happened.

A presumption that the defendant was negligent, which arises upon proof that the instrumentality or condition
causing the injury was in the defendant's exclusive control and that the accident was one that ordinarily does
not occur in the absence of Negligence