Duty In Pennsylvania And New Jersey Tort Law

Duty In Pennsylvania And New Jersey Tort LawA Structural Analysis of Civil Liability, Assumed Duty, Statutory Imposition, Contractual Undertaking, and Third-Party Exposures

Posted By Brian E. Fritz, Esquire | Fritz and Bianculli, LLC | Philadelphia, PA

I.  Introduction: Duty as the Threshold Inquiry in Civil Litigation

Duty is the foundational legal predicate in negligence litigation. Without a legally recognized duty, there can be no breach, no causation analysis, and no recovery. The duty inquiry is not merely preliminary — it is structural. A plaintiff who cannot establish that the defendant owed a legally cognizable duty to the plaintiff in the circumstances at issue has no claim, regardless of how egregious the defendant’s conduct or how catastrophic the plaintiff’s injuries.

In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the existence of duty is a question of law for the court. See Mindala v. Am. Motors Corp., 543 A.2d 520 (Pa. 1988); Hopkins v. Fox & Lazo Realtors, 132 N.J. 426 (1993). This distinction carries significant procedural implications. Because duty is decided by the court rather than the jury, it is frequently the subject of dispositive motion practice. A defendant who can establish as a matter of law that no duty existed — or that no duty extended to this plaintiff under these circumstances — may obtain summary judgment before the case ever reaches a jury.

From the moment a complaint is drafted, the litigator must evaluate whether a legally cognizable duty exists, to whom it extends, and how it will ultimately be framed in relation to the applicable jury instructions. The failure to identify a viable duty theory at the pleading stage will limit discovery scope, invite early dispositive motions, and — if the deficiency is not corrected — result in dismissal before trial.

This analysis examines the multiple sources from which duty may arise under Pennsylvania and New Jersey law: assumption of duty through voluntary undertaking, statutory and regulatory imposition, contractual obligation, common law relational status, and third-party exposure in the employment context. Understanding these distinct doctrinal pathways is essential to sophisticated case evaluation and litigation strategy in the Philadelphia region and throughout both states.

II.  Duty as Determined by the Court, Informed by the Jury Charge

Although breach, causation, and damages are typically questions for the jury, the existence of duty is decided by the court as a matter of law. This allocation reflects the policy dimension of the duty inquiry: courts determine as a threshold matter whether the law should impose an obligation of care between these parties under these circumstances, before allowing a jury to assess whether that obligation was breached.

However, the scope of duty directly shapes what the jury will later be instructed to decide. The Pennsylvania Suggested Standard Civil Jury Instructions (Pa. SSJI (Civ)) and the New Jersey Model Civil Jury Charges presuppose that a duty exists when they instruct the jury on breach, standard of care, and causation. The court’s duty determination thus frames the universe within which the jury operates.

Effective litigation strategy requires aligning pleadings and discovery with the anticipated jury instructions governing negligence. If the duty theory is that a general contractor assumed responsibility for site safety and thereby owed a duty to subcontractor employees under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 324A, the discovery must develop the factual predicate for that assumed duty — the contract language, the actual supervisory conduct, the safety protocols undertaken — so that the jury charge on breach and causation will operate within a framework where the assumed duty has been established as a matter of law.

The relationship between judicial duty determination and jury instruction is not sequential in practice; it is recursive. The litigator should identify, at the outset, what duty theory the court will be asked to recognize and what jury instructions will follow from that recognition. Discovery, expert retention, and summary judgment briefing should then be structured to support that theory through trial.

III.  Assumed Duty: Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 323 and 324A

Pennsylvania and New Jersey both recognize that a party who voluntarily undertakes to render services to another may thereby assume a duty of care that did not previously exist. This doctrine — often called negligent undertaking — is codified in the Restatement (Second) of Torts at sections 323 and 324A, and both states have adopted these principles.

A.  Section 323: Liability to the Person Served

Section 323 provides that one who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of the other’s person or things, is subject to liability for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care in performing the undertaking, if (a) his failure to exercise such care increases the risk of harm, or (b) the harm is suffered because the other or a third person has relied upon the undertaking.

The doctrine applies across professional and commercial contexts. A safety consultant who undertakes to inspect a construction site has assumed a duty to perform that inspection with reasonable care. A hospital that undertakes to provide emergency services has assumed a duty to deliver those services competently. A physician who undertakes to treat a patient — even in an informal or consultative capacity — may thereby assume a duty that would not otherwise exist.

The critical inquiry is whether the defendant undertook to render services, and if so, whether the plaintiff’s harm resulted from the defendant’s failure to exercise reasonable care in that undertaking. The undertaking need not be contractual; gratuitous undertakings equally give rise to the duty once performance has begun.

B.  Section 324A: Liability to Third Persons

Section 324A extends the negligent undertaking doctrine to third parties who were not themselves the direct recipients of the services undertaken. Under this section, one who undertakes, gratuitously or for consideration, to render services to another which he should recognize as necessary for the protection of a third person, is subject to liability to the third person for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care, if (a) his failure to exercise such care increases the risk of harm, or (b) he has undertaken to perform a duty owed by the other to the third person, or (c) the harm is suffered because of reliance of the other or the third person upon the undertaking.

This doctrine is particularly significant in construction injury litigation, which constitutes a substantial portion of serious personal injury cases in the Philadelphia region. A general contractor who contracts with a property owner to provide site safety oversight has undertaken services for the owner that are necessary for the protection of workers on the site — the third persons contemplated by the section. If the general contractor negligently performs that safety oversight, injured workers may have a direct claim against the general contractor under § 324A, independent of any workers’ compensation bar that may apply to their direct employer.

The same analysis applies in other multi-party contexts. A corporate parent company that undertakes safety oversight of subsidiary operations may assume a duty to workers at subsidiary facilities. A property management company that undertakes security services for a commercial building may assume a duty to tenants and visitors. An insurance company that undertakes to inspect insured premises for safety hazards may assume a duty to employees who work on those premises.

Pennsylvania courts have consistently recognized § 324A liability in construction contexts. See Farabaugh v. Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, 911 A.2d 1264 (Pa. 2006) (analyzing negligent undertaking principles in construction safety context). New Jersey similarly applies the Restatement framework. See Carvalho v. Toll Bros. & Developers, 278 N.J. Super. 451 (App. Div. 1995), aff’d, 143 N.J. 565 (1996).

C.  Medical Professional Undertaking: Individual and Institutional Dimensions

The negligent undertaking doctrine applies with equal force in medical contexts, though the analysis differs depending on whether the undertaking is by an individual provider or a healthcare institution.

An individual physician who undertakes to treat a patient — whether formally through an established patient relationship or informally through consultation, curbside advice, or emergency response — assumes a duty to exercise the care that a reasonably competent physician in the same specialty would exercise under similar circumstances. The undertaking creates the duty; the breach of that duty through departure from the professional standard of care constitutes medical negligence.

The institutional dimension presents distinct questions. A hospital or healthcare system that undertakes to provide emergency services, to credential and supervise medical staff, or to maintain safe premises and equipment assumes duties that run parallel to — but are doctrinally distinct from — the duties of individual providers. A hospital that undertakes to provide adequate nursing coverage has assumed a duty to patients that may be breached through systemic understaffing, independent of any individual nurse’s negligence. A healthcare system that undertakes to credential physicians has assumed a duty to exercise reasonable care in that credentialing process; negligent credentialing that allows an incompetent physician to treat patients may give rise to institutional liability under § 323.

In the Philadelphia region, where major health systems operate across both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the choice of law implications of institutional undertaking can be significant. A patient injured at a New Jersey facility operated by a Pennsylvania-based health system may have claims governed by different standards depending on how the undertaking analysis is framed.

IV.  Statutory Duty and Regulatory Imposition

Duty may arise from legislative enactments. When a statute or regulation imposes a specific obligation, the violation of that obligation may establish duty and — depending on jurisdictional interpretation — may inform or even establish breach.

A.  Motor Vehicle Statutes

The Pennsylvania Motor Vehicle Code (75 Pa.C.S. ch. 33 et seq.) and the New Jersey Motor Vehicle and Traffic Laws (N.J. Stat. Ann. § 39:1-1 et seq.) impose numerous obligations on drivers: speed limits, right-of-way rules, requirements to yield to pedestrians, prohibitions on distracted driving. These statutory obligations codify the duty of reasonable care that drivers owe to other road users.

Violation of a motor vehicle statute may constitute negligence per se — that is, the statutory violation itself establishes both duty and breach, leaving only causation and damages for the jury to decide. Pennsylvania follows a flexible negligence per se standard, permitting but not requiring the court to instruct the jury that a statutory violation constitutes negligence. See Grove v. Port Auth., 218 A.3d 877 (Pa. 2019). New Jersey similarly recognizes that statutory violations are evidence of negligence, though the violation must be of a statute designed to protect the class of persons to which the plaintiff belongs against the type of harm that occurred. See Alloway v. Bradlees, Inc., 157 N.J. 221 (1999).

For cases arising from accidents on I-95, the Schuylkill Expressway, Route 1 through Delaware County and into New Jersey, or any of the major corridors in the Philadelphia region, the statutory framework governing driver conduct provides the foundational duty analysis. The litigator must identify which specific statutory provisions were violated, whether those provisions were designed to protect against the type of harm that occurred, and how the statutory violation interacts with the common law standard of care the jury will be instructed to apply.

B.  Occupational Safety and Health Regulations

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations, codified at 29 C.F.R. pt. 1926 et seq. (construction safety standards) and 29 C.F.R. pt. 1910 et seq. (general industry standards), impose detailed safety obligations upon employers and, in certain circumstances, upon controlling entities at multi-employer worksites.

OSHA violations do not automatically create a private right of action or civil liability. The statute itself does not contemplate private enforcement. However, OSHA standards may be admitted as evidence of the standard of care applicable to the defendant’s conduct, and violations may support expert testimony that the defendant breached the applicable standard.

In construction injury cases throughout the Philadelphia region — from Center City high-rise projects to refinery maintenance in New Jersey to residential development in Montgomery and Bucks Counties — OSHA standards frequently frame the duty and breach analysis. A plaintiff injured by a fall from an unguarded scaffold can point to 29 C.F.R. §1926.451 (scaffold safety requirements) as establishing the standard of care the defendant should have followed. Expert testimony can then explain how the defendant’s conduct departed from that standard.

The multi-employer worksite doctrine under OSHA adds complexity. OSHA recognizes that at construction sites, multiple employers may have safety obligations — the creating employer who caused the hazard, the exposing employer whose employees are exposed, the correcting employer with authority to fix the hazard, and the controlling employer with general supervisory authority over the site. While these OSHA categories do not automatically translate into tort duties, they inform the analysis of which parties may have assumed or undertaken safety responsibilities sufficient to support a civil claim.

C.  Building Codes and Safety Regulations

Municipal building codes, fire codes, and state safety regulations impose obligations on property owners, contractors, and building operators. A property owner who violates Philadelphia’s property maintenance code, a contractor who violates Pennsylvania’s Uniform Construction Code, or a building operator who violates New Jersey’s fire safety regulations may be subject to a negligence per se analysis similar to that applied to motor vehicle violations.

The key analytical question is whether the statute or regulation was designed to protect the class of persons to which the plaintiff belongs against the type of harm that occurred. A building code provision requiring adequate egress was designed to protect building occupants against the harm of being unable to escape in an emergency. A fire code provision requiring sprinkler systems was designed to protect occupants against fire-related harm. If the plaintiff suffered harm within the protective scope of the regulation, the violation may establish both duty and breach.

Read more about When the Legislature Decides the Duty Question

V.  Contractual Assumption of Duty and Retained Control

Duty may arise from contractual undertakings. A party who assumes responsibility for certain conduct through contract may owe duties to persons beyond the direct contractual relationship, particularly where the assumed responsibility involves safety.

A.  General Contractor Site Safety Obligations

In construction injury litigation, the most frequently litigated contractual duty question involves the general contractor’s assumption of site safety responsibility. A general contractor who assumes through contract the obligation to maintain site safety, to coordinate subcontractor activities, or to ensure compliance with safety regulations may thereby owe duties to workers employed by subcontractors — workers with whom the general contractor has no direct employment relationship.

The analysis begins with the contract language. Courts examine whether the general contractor contractually assumed safety responsibilities, retained supervisory authority over the means and methods of the work, or reserved control over the conditions at the worksite. The contract alone is not dispositive; courts also examine the actual practice on the jobsite to determine whether the general contractor exercised the control it retained.

Pennsylvania applies the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 414, which provides that one who entrusts work to an independent contractor, but retains control over any part of the work, is subject to liability for physical harm to others caused by his failure to exercise reasonable care in the control he has retained. The retained control must be over the operative detail of the work — not merely the right to inspect or to require compliance with specifications.

New Jersey similarly examines whether the general contractor retained sufficient control over the worksite to give rise to a duty. See Alloway v. Bradlees, Inc., 157 N.J. 221 (1999) (analyzing control retention in premises context).

For construction injuries at major projects in Philadelphia — Center City commercial developments, University City institutional construction, the Navy Yard redevelopment — and throughout the surrounding counties, the contractual allocation of safety responsibility shapes the duty analysis. The plaintiff’s attorney must obtain and analyze the prime contract, subcontracts, and any site-specific safety plans to identify which parties assumed safety obligations and to whom those obligations extend.

B.  Property Owner Delegation and Retained Control

Property owners who hire contractors to perform work on their premises may similarly assume or retain duties depending on the scope of their involvement. A property owner who merely hires an independent contractor and exercises no control over the work generally owes no duty to the contractor’s employees for jobsite conditions. But a property owner who retains control over safety conditions, who directs the means and methods of the work, or who undertakes to provide safety equipment or oversight may assume a duty to workers on the site.

The analysis is fact-intensive. In New Jersey premises liability cases — shopping center construction in Cherry Hill, warehouse development in Burlington County, refinery turnaround work in Gloucester County — the property owner’s level of involvement frequently determines whether the owner faces direct liability for worker injuries.

C.  Healthcare System Contractual Undertakings

Healthcare systems increasingly operate through complex contractual arrangements: physician employment agreements, independent contractor arrangements with specialists, management services agreements with affiliated practices, and credentialing and privileging processes that control which providers may practice at system facilities.

These contractual arrangements may give rise to institutional duties independent of the duties owed by individual providers. A health system that contracts to provide emergency physician coverage at a hospital has undertaken a duty to ensure that coverage is adequately staffed and competently performed. A system that contracts to credential and supervise affiliated physicians has undertaken a duty to exercise reasonable care in that credentialing function.

The institutional undertaking theory is particularly significant in cases where the individual provider may be judgment-proof or where the institutional conduct — systemic understaffing, inadequate supervision, negligent credentialing — contributed to the patient’s harm independent of any individual provider’s negligence.

Read more about Medical Malpractice in Pennsylvania and New Jersey

VI.  Common Law Relational Duties

Beyond assumed, statutory, and contractual duties, common law doctrine recognizes certain relationships as giving rise to duties of care. These relational duties are established by precedent and do not require affirmative undertaking, statutory imposition, or contractual assumption — the relationship itself creates the duty.

A.  Physician-Patient Relationship

The physician-patient relationship is the paradigmatic professional duty relationship. Once established, the relationship imposes upon the physician a duty to exercise the knowledge, skill, and care ordinarily possessed and exercised by members of the profession in good standing in the same or similar localities. This is the professional standard of care that medical malpractice claims are built upon.

The relationship is typically established through the commencement of treatment. A physician who examines a patient, renders a diagnosis, or undertakes therapeutic intervention has entered into the physician-patient relationship and assumed the attendant duty. The relationship may also arise through consultation — a physician who provides diagnostic or treatment recommendations to a colleague regarding a specific patient may owe duties to that patient, depending on the nature and extent of the consultation.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey apply similar professional standard of care analyses, though expert witness requirements differ. Pennsylvania requires that medical expert witnesses possess familiarity with the applicable standard of care through active practice or recent teaching experience in the relevant specialty. New Jersey similarly requires that experts be qualified by knowledge of the applicable standard, typically through training or experience in the same specialty.

B.  Premises Liability: Business Invitees, Licensees, and Trespassers

Property owners owe duties to persons who enter their property, but the scope of the duty varies depending on the entrant’s status.

Business invitees — persons who enter property for purposes connected with the owner’s business — are owed the highest duty. Property owners must exercise reasonable care to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition, to inspect for hazards, to remedy known dangers, and to warn of conditions that cannot be immediately corrected. The duty to inspect is affirmative; the property owner cannot escape liability by claiming ignorance of a hazard that reasonable inspection would have discovered.

For slip and fall cases at Philadelphia retail establishments, New Jersey restaurants, Montgomery County shopping centers, and commercial properties throughout the region, the business invitee standard governs. The plaintiff must establish that a hazardous condition existed, that the property owner knew or should have known of the condition through reasonable inspection, and that the failure to remedy or warn of the condition caused the plaintiff’s injuries.

Licensees — persons who enter property with permission but for their own purposes, such as social guests — are owed a lesser duty. Property owners must refrain from willful or wanton misconduct and must warn of known dangerous conditions that are not obvious.

Trespassers — persons who enter without permission — are generally owed only the duty to refrain from willful or wanton injury, though exceptions exist for discovered trespassers and for child trespassers under the attractive nuisance doctrine.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey have somewhat different formulations of these categories, and both states have considered whether to abolish the categories entirely in favor of a general reasonableness standard. Practitioners must be attentive to the current state of the law in the applicable jurisdiction.

C.  Manufacturer-Consumer Relationship: Products Liability

Manufacturers, distributors, and sellers of products owe duties to consumers under both negligence and strict liability theories. The Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A imposes strict liability upon sellers of products in a defective condition unreasonably dangerous to consumers. Pennsylvania has adopted § 402A; New Jersey has adopted a modified version through the New Jersey Products Liability Act, N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:58C-1 et seq.

Products liability claims arising from defective vehicles, dangerous pharmaceuticals, defective medical devices, and unsafe consumer products implicate duties that flow from the manufacturer-consumer relationship. The duty analysis in products cases is often subsumed within the defect and causation inquiries, but the foundational principle remains: those who place products into the stream of commerce owe duties to foreseeable consumers to ensure those products are not defectively designed, manufactured, or marketed.

D.  Government Entities: Sovereign Immunity and Its Exceptions

Government entities that own and maintain roads, bridges, public buildings, and other infrastructure owe duties to persons who use those facilities, but sovereign immunity significantly limits the scope of recoverable claims.

Pennsylvania’s Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 8541 et seq., provides that local government entities are generally immune from suit except for specific categories of negligence: vehicle liability, care of property, trees and utility poles, traffic controls, utility service facilities, streets, sidewalks, and care of animals. The Commonwealth and its agencies are similarly immune except for specific statutory exceptions.

New Jersey’s Tort Claims Act, N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:1-1 et seq., establishes a similar framework of general immunity with specific exceptions for dangerous conditions of public property, vehicle operations, and certain other categories.

Claims against government entities require strict compliance with notice requirements. In Pennsylvania, claims against the Commonwealth require notice within six months under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5522. In New Jersey, claims against public entities require notice within 90 days under N.J. Stat. Ann. § 59:8-8.

For injury victims hurt at SEPTA stations, on Philadelphia city sidewalks, on New Jersey Transit property, or in any government-owned facility, the notice deadlines are critical. A claim that would otherwise be viable may be permanently barred by failure to provide timely notice.

VII.  Third-Party Duty in the Employment Context

Workers’ compensation exclusivity generally bars negligence claims against direct employers but does not bar claims against negligent third parties whose conduct contributed to a workplace injury. This distinction is fundamental to construction injury and workplace accident litigation throughout the Philadelphia region.

A.  The Workers’ Compensation Bar

Under both the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, 77 P.S. § 1 et seq., and the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act, N.J. Stat. Ann. § 34:15-1 et seq., employees who are injured in the course and scope of employment receive statutory benefits from their employer in exchange for relinquishing the right to sue the employer in tort. This trade-off — guaranteed but limited benefits in exchange for tort immunity — is the fundamental bargain of workers’ compensation.

The exclusivity bar applies only to the direct employer. Third parties who negligently contributed to the workplace injury remain subject to tort liability.

B.  Third Parties Who May Owe Duties to Injured Workers

The universe of potentially liable third parties in workplace injury cases is broad and includes:

• General contractors who assumed site safety responsibilities through contract or retained control over jobsite conditions.
• Property owners who retained control over premises conditions, failed to warn of known hazards, or assumed safety oversight obligations.
• Equipment manufacturers whose defectively designed or manufactured equipment caused or contributed to the injury.
• Equipment lessors who provided unsafe equipment or failed to maintain leased equipment.
• Safety consultants who undertook to provide safety services and performed those services negligently.
• Architects and engineers whose design decisions created hazardous conditions.
• Other subcontractors whose negligent conduct created hazards that injured workers from different trades.

Each of these potential defendants must be analyzed through the duty frameworks discussed above: Did they assume a duty through voluntary undertaking? Did statute or regulation impose a duty? Did contract create a duty? Does common law precedent establish a relational duty?

VIII.  Duty and Summary Judgment: The Procedural Gatekeeping Function

Because duty is a legal question, it is frequently addressed at summary judgment. See Pa.R.C.P. 1035.2; N.J. Ct. R. 4:46. The defendant who can establish that no legally recognized duty exists — or that no duty extended to this plaintiff under these circumstances — may obtain dismissal before trial.

The summary judgment stage is where duty doctrine meets procedural reality. A plaintiff who has pled a viable duty theory and developed factual support through discovery may survive summary judgment and proceed to trial on breach and causation. A plaintiff whose duty theory is legally insufficient or factually unsupported will face dismissal.

From a defense perspective, summary judgment on duty grounds is often the most efficient path to resolution. If the court determines that the defendant owed no duty to the plaintiff as a matter of law, the case ends without the uncertainties of jury deliberation on breach and causation.

From a plaintiff’s perspective, surviving summary judgment on duty requires both legal and factual development. The legal component requires identifying precedent supporting the duty theory advanced. The factual component requires developing evidence — through document discovery, depositions, and expert analysis — establishing the predicate facts necessary to support the duty theory.

In assumed duty cases under § 323 or § 324A, this means evidence that the defendant undertook to render services, that those services were necessary for the protection of the plaintiff or a class including the plaintiff, and that the defendant’s negligent performance of those services caused the plaintiff’s harm.

In retained control cases, this means evidence that the defendant retained control over the operative details of the work or the conditions at the premises, not merely the right to inspect or approve.

In statutory duty cases, this means evidence that the statute was designed to protect the class of persons to which the plaintiff belongs against the type of harm that occurred.

The summary judgment battlefield is where duty analysis yields concrete litigation outcomes.

IX.  Litigating Backward from the Jury Charge: Duty as Strategic Foundation

Although duty is decided by the court, the ultimate presentation of breach and causation to the jury must align with the defined scope of duty. The jury instructions on negligence presuppose that a duty exists; they instruct the jury on whether the defendant breached that duty and whether the breach caused harm.

The litigator who understands this relationship structures the case from the outset around the duty theory that will be established by judicial ruling and the jury instructions that will follow.

If the duty theory is that a general contractor assumed site safety responsibility and thereby owed a duty to subcontractor employees under § 324A, the complaint should allege the assumption of duty, discovery should develop the contract language and actual supervisory conduct, and expert testimony should address the standard of care applicable to a party who has assumed such responsibility.

If the duty theory is that a hospital’s negligent credentialing of a physician constitutes an institutional breach independent of the physician’s individual malpractice, the complaint should allege the institutional undertaking, discovery should develop the credentialing process and its deficiencies, and expert testimony should address both the credentialing standard and the causal connection between credentialing failure and patient harm.

If the duty theory is that a property owner retained sufficient control over construction activities to owe a duty to workers on the site, the complaint should allege retained control, discovery should develop the contract terms and actual conduct demonstrating control, and expert testimony should address the safety obligations that flow from such control.

In each instance, the duty theory shapes everything that follows: the discovery plan, the expert retention decisions, the summary judgment briefing, and the trial presentation.

X.  Conclusion: Duty as the Structural Gateway to Liability

Duty may arise through voluntary assumption, statutory or regulatory imposition, contractual undertaking, common law relational status, or retained control over conditions or activities. Understanding the source, scope, and extension of duty distinguishes superficial case evaluation from sophisticated civil litigation analysis.

The duty inquiry is not merely a threshold to be crossed before moving to the “real” issues of breach and causation. Duty is the structural gateway through which all negligence claims must pass. A duty theory that is legally sound and factually supported provides the foundation for a case that will survive summary judgment and present compellingly to a jury. A duty theory that is legally unsound or factually unsupported will result in dismissal regardless of the severity of the plaintiff’s injuries or the apparent wrongfulness of the defendant’s conduct.

For injury victims in Philadelphia, throughout the surrounding Pennsylvania counties, and across New Jersey, understanding the duty analysis that governs their case is the beginning of understanding whether they have a viable claim, against whom that claim may be brought, and what must be proven to prevail.

Duty remains the gateway through which all negligence claims must pass and the framework upon which advanced liability strategy is built.

About Brian E. Fritz, Esquire

BRIAN E. FRITZ, ESQUIRE has represented seriously injured clients in Pennsylvania and New Jersey for almost 30 years. He has dedicated his practice to providing hope to the victims of others’ negligence and helping them navigate the challenges they now face. His primary focus includes: construction and premises liability; corporate direct liability for negligence; motor vehicle and trucking accidents; dangerous and defective products; unsafe modification of products and machinery; medical malpractice with an emphasis on birth-related injuries and cerebral palsy; exposing liability caused by disguised and hidden corporate decision-makers; establishing vicarious liability where companies have mislabeled workers as independent contractors; securing third-party liability for catastrophically injured workers whose recoveries would otherwise be limited to workers’ compensation; and providing second opinions to seriously injured clients whose cases were initially rejected on mistaken assumptions.

He is admitted to practice law in the State and Federal Courts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and has handled cases in other jurisdictions on a pro hac vice basis. Based in Philadelphia, he represents clients throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association.

He has been recognized annually by his peer attorneys for inclusion in Super Lawyers and has been named one of the Top 100 Attorneys in Philadelphia in the Super Lawyers rankings. He has annually been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America. His case results have achieved annual national and state recognition by Best of the Bar, reserved for only the top 100 resolutions in any given year. He has annually received Martindale-Hubbell’s AV Preeminent rating for Legal Ability and Ethical Standards based on voting by peer attorneys and members of the Judiciary (Judicial Edition).

Disclaimer: This article is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Every case is unique, and the information presented here should not be relied upon as a substitute for consultation with a qualified attorney. If you have been injured, please contact a licensed personal injury attorney in your jurisdiction to discuss the specific facts and circumstances of your situation.