Is a barber liable for messing up a haircut? If a barber accidentally gives someone a bad haircut, causing them to miss a meeting and contract, can the person sue for damages?
Yes, they could sue either for breach of contract or under the tort of negligence. If they succeed, they would be entitled to either a) a refund or b) another haircut. They would not be entitled to damages for "miss a meeting and contract" as these are not foreseeable results of a bad haircut. That is, the barber's negligence is not sufficiently proximate to the loss.
It may depend on the jurisdiction (although I can't readily think of one where this is not the case) but deliberately, recklessly or negligently putting a burning object next to someone else's property knowing that there is a real risk of it catching fire (and going ahead with it anyway) will almost definitely make one liable: especially if there is an ulterior motive. In england-and-wales This would be called arson - causing criminal damage by fire - an offence contrary to section 1(3) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 Cross posted with the jurisdiction defining comment
The mechanic could be held liable, indeed this attorney explains what you have to prove in exactly this case (not necessarily involving a million dollar car). The mechanic was negligent in diagnosing and repairing the brakes. You then have to prove that you mad the mechanic service the brakes (receipts / invoices). You need an attorney to figure out exactly why the brakes failed – maybe he messed up reassembling the brakes, maybe the brakes were defective (product liability) and he was negligent in detecting the defect – then the manufacturer is also liable, and it becomes an issue of what percentage of blame goes to each person. This doesn't mean that you are off the hook, because you still might have taken action to avoid the collision (emergency brake? steer to the right? how fast were you driving, how close were you following?).
If the employment was at will, the most the company could have done was fire her. If the employment has already been ended on good terms, the most the company can do is refuse to rehire her and/or give bad references. As you point out, no contract existed and they'd have a devil of a time proving damages anyway.
I think this is a lot like this question Liability for poisoning food one expects to be stolen because you are causing harm to someone/something when they are using your things without permission. That question says that if you expect someone to do something with something that you have purposely made wrong then you are legally responsible for the effects.
I would let the hotel know about it. If the injury requires a hospital visit that resulted in costs then, I would contact your travel (and/or personal) insurances and ask them how to deal with it. The main question you have to ask yourself, is it worth it to spend the time and effort (which equals money in the end) to try to "gain" something from the hotel ?
Under U.S. law, when you hire someone and they are injured while doing work for which you hired them, the ordinary tort law regime does not apply. Instead, you are in the worker's compensation regime, under which the employer is strictly liable for the injury. Whether the employee or the employer was at fault in any way (negligent, grossly negligent, reckless, or intentional) is largely irrelevant (except that worker's compensation insurance does not cover the employer's intentional harm to workers which is the employer's responsibility to pay on an uninsured basis). This applies to all injuries on the job, whether or not they are related to the work, and whether or not anyone involved with the employer actually did anything wrong. For example, an employer has strict liability for the injuries of a convenience store clerk sustained by the clerk in an armed robbery of the convenience store where the clerk is working undertaken by felon who escaped from prison hours before due to the carelessness of the prison guards. Usually, that injury is fully insured if the employer has the legally required worker's compensation insurance in place, but the penalty for not having it in place is most commonly that the employer has liability to the full extent, if not greater, than the employer's worker's compensation insurance would have if it was in place. Worker's compensation recoveries are limited to actual economic damages like lost wages and medical expenses, without regard to non-economic harms like pain and suffering and worker's compensation plans also have a very limited death benefit when the worker has no dependents. But these limitations on damages don't always apply when the employer fails to have worker's compensation insurance in place. Worker's compensation liability varies from place to place, but in most states it applies to independent contractors who have not put in place worker's compensation insurance for themselves as well. In your example, Fred has full liability for Barney's injuries. Uriah does not have liability for Barney's injuries due to his good faith belief that he was acting in self-defense or defense of others. But note that Fred's strict liability for Barney's injuries does not preclude a third-party from having liability as well, both to Barney (for damages for which there is not employer liability under the worker's compensation regime such as pain and suffering, and/or in the case of an intentional tort like the armed robbery of the convenience store, punitive damages), and to the employer/worker's compensation insurer for a subrogation claim to recover the amounts paid to Barney as a result of the third-party's negligence or intentional acts.
Liable, yes. How much liable, depends. There would be copyright infringement, and with copyright infringement the exact facts count. Like did you commit copyright infringement to make money, were you aware that you committed copyright infringement etc. With your contract, it seems clear you didn't set out to commit copyright infringement to make money (because you paid someone else telling them not to commit copyright infringement). Up to the point where you learned what happened, you didn't know it was copyright infringement. After this, you better remove all the infringing works, because now you know it's copyright infringement, and now you are saving money by not hiring a second developer. Obviously you can sue the employee for damages.