Negligence (law)

Negligence (Lat. negligium, from neglegerium, to neglect, literally "not to pick up something") is a failure to exercise the appropriate and or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances.

According to Jay M. Feinman of the Rutgers University School of Law: "The core idea of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care when they act by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people."

Someone who suffers loss caused by another's negligence may be able to sue for damages to compensate for their harm. Such loss may include physical injury, harm to property, psychiatric illness, or economic loss. The law on negligence may be assessed in general terms according to a five-part model which includes the assessment of duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages.

Some things must be established by anyone who wants to sue in negligence. These are what are called the "elements" of negligence.

Some say there are three elements – conduct, causation and damages. Most say there are four – duty, breach, causation, and damages – or five – duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages. Each is correct depending on how much specificity is needed. "The broad agreement on the conceptual model", writes Professor David W. Robertson of the University of Texas at Austin, "entails recognition that the five elements are best defined with care and kept separate. But in practice", he goes on to warn, "several varieties of confusion or conceptual mistakes have sometimes occurred."

The legal liability of a defendant to a plaintiff is based on the defendant's failure to fulfil a responsibility, recognised by law, of which the plaintiff is the intended beneficiary. The first step in determining the existence of a legally recognised responsibility is the concept of an obligation or duty. In the tort of negligence the term used is duty of care

The case of Donoghue v. Stevenson [1932] established the modern law of negligence, laying the foundations of the duty of care and the fault principle which, (through the Privy Council), have been adopted throughout the Commonwealth. May Donoghue and her friend were in a café in Paisley. The friend bought Mrs Donoghue a ginger beer float. She drank some of the beer and later poured the remainder over her ice-cream and was horrified to see the decomposed remains of a snail exit the bottle. Donoghue suffered nervous shock and gastro-enteritis, but did not sue the cafe owner, instead suing the manufacturer, Stevenson. (As Mrs Donoghue had not herself bought the ginger beer, the doctrine of privity precluded a contractual action against Stevenson).

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Wikipedia