PrepTest 109

Incorrect. This injury was caused by a sidewalk in need of repair, so the city is liable for it. However, the city did know about this danger and didn't fix it, so they were arguably negligent and thus the second principle doesn't establish that they shouldn't be liable.

Incorrect. This injury wasn't caused by a sidewalk in need of repair or maintenance—it was caused by litter. Even if you determined that cleaning up litter is considered maintenance, there's no indication that the city wasn't negligent here or lacked knowledge of the situation—they could know that an area has a lot of litter and yet failed to allocate proper resources to ensure it was generally safe.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
Injury caused by damaged sidewalk → Grimchester liable
Government should be liable → Knew about danger on public property and negligently didn't fix it

Answer Anticipation:
The question stem here is very specific—we need to find an answer describing a situation that the city is liable for but shouldn't be.

The first of the two principles that we're presented with provides a sufficient condition for the city currently being liable, addressing the first part of the question stem. So we need to look for an answer that establishes an injury caused by a sidewalk in need of repair or maintenance.

The second of the two principles establishes a necessary condition ("only if") for the city to be held liable. Since the question asks about an injury where they shouldn't be held liable, we need to take the contrapositive:
not Knew about danger on public property and negligently didn't fix → not Government shouldn't be liable

Putting these two situations together, we need to find an injury that was caused by a sidewalk in need of repair or maintenance that the city didn't know about, or didn't negligently fail to fix.

Answer Explanation:
This injury was caused by a sidewalk in need of repair, so the city is liable. Additionally, the city can't be expected to repair a large hole within minutes of learning about it, so they can't be considered negligent in failing to repair it—thus guaranteeing they shouldn't be held liable according to the second principle. This answer addresses both parts of the question stem, so it's the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
When a Must Be True (Principle) question specifies the situation you're looking for in the question stem, you should be able to anticipate exactly what is true of the situation in the correct answer. Spend the time to work through how the principles and the question stem interact so that you can ID the correct answer faster!

Incorrect. The injury here wasn't caused by a sidewalk in need of repair or maintenance, so we can't determine that the city is liable under current laws.

Incorrect. The injury here wasn't caused by a sidewalk in need of repair or maintenance, so we can't determine that the city is liable under current laws.