Negligence

Negligence is a legal term with applications in civil and criminal law. In both cases, the act of negligence revolves around the failure of an individual to act or behave in a manner that conforms with basic standards of personal conduct, a concept known as duty of care. Civil cases hold the negligent individual responsible for financial damages resulting from their actions, while criminal negligence holds a person accountable for negligent actions that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have shown disregard for human life or safety, or for the negative consequences of their conduct. From a legal standpoint, criminal negligence demands a greater degree of responsibility than those normally applied in civil cases.

Negligence in Civil Law

In American civil law, there are five discrete elements of negligence, each of which must be conclusively demonstrated for the court to have grounds to rule in favor of the plaintiff. These elements are duty of care, breach, cause in fact, proximate cause, and harm. Each of these five topics is a nuanced legal topic in its own right.

Duty of care is a legal principle that requires all citizens to conduct themselves in a manner that does not endanger the safety, property, or well-being of others. The first element that must be proven in a civil negligence case is that the defendant owed the plaintiff a specific duty of care directly related to the case at hand.

Next, the plaintiff must show that the defendant, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, breached that duty of care. In contemporary American civil law, duty of care standards are implicitly imposed on most citizens at all times. These standards require that people conduct themselves with what is termed as "reasonable" care; to breach duty of care, a defendant must act without the due level of care expected of reasonable conduct.

Cause in fact and proximate cause are related but distinct elements. In order for a court to find the defendant liable for the plaintiff's damages in a civil negligence case, a direct relationship between the negligent action and the resulting damages must be shown; this is the basis of cause in fact. Proximate cause, on the other hand, is a somewhat more elusive concept; it relates to whether the defendant could foresee that their actions would result in damage to the plaintiff's person or property. Proximate cause represents one of the most complex aspects of civil negligence litigation, as judicial discretion can become a factor in cases where proximate cause cannot be concretely established. Third-party actions can further complicate matters, especially in cases involving an elaborate chain of events.

Since the causal elements of negligence presuppose that actual harm was done to the plaintiff by the defendant, the final step is to demonstrate that harm. If successful, the court will then require the defendant to make restitution to the plaintiff to restore what the plaintiff lost as the result of the defendant's negligence. It is important to note that American civil law contains no provisions that allow plaintiffs to profit from negligence cases; in other words, it is unlawful for a court to order a defendant to pay damages that exceed what a plaintiff demonstrably lost.

British civil law is similar but follows a more compact form of the American model. In Britain, liability for negligent actions is usually said to consist of three elements: that the defendant owed the plaintiff a reasonable duty of care, that the defendant violated that duty, and that the plaintiff suffered damages as a result of the defendant's negligent actions. As in the United States, British civil law requires the defendant to restore only what the plaintiff lost.

In a legal doctrine called strict liability, particular industries are liable for damages or injuries their organization or products cause, regardless of their fault or negligence in the incident. While in most situations, reasonable care is the standard for measuring liability for negligence, industries or individuals—such as businesses involved in inherently hazardous activities, individuals who own dangerous animals, and industries that cause excessive environmental pollution—can be held responsible for any harm they cause even if they act with more than reasonable levels of care.

Criminal Negligence

The standards applied in cases of criminal negligence differ from those in civil cases. From a general standpoint, civil cases revolve around whether the defendant violated the duty of care a "reasonable" person would have followed, were a reasonable person put in place of the defendant in the matter at hand. However, in criminal cases, culpability is determined by the defendant's mental state when the alleged negligent action took place. The prosecution must prove that the defendant failed to apprehend a significant risk that a reasonable person would have perceived, or that the defendant detected that risk and understood its potential consequences but chose a negligent course of action.

The most serious form of criminal negligence is criminally negligent homicide, which occurs when a negligent defendant's actions result in the loss of human life. Another common form of criminal negligence is negligent endangerment of a child; parents are held to higher duty of care standards concerning the safeguarding of their children, and neglect and other types of careless action that threaten the child's health, well-being, or safety are considered grounds for criminal prosecution.

The Corporate Negligence Doctrine

A third type of negligence is known as the corporate negligence doctrine. This legal principle is typically applied in the healthcare field, and holds that hospitals, long-term care centers, rehabilitation clinics, and other medical centers are required to meet specific standards regarding cleanliness, quality of staff, patient supervision, and institutional safety policies. Failure to meet these standards creates legal grounds for the facility to be held responsible for resultant harm to patients.

The legal precedent for the corporate negligence doctrine was set in Pennsylvania in 1991, when a court ruled that the hospital was responsible in a negligence case against one of the surgeons working there. Prior to this decision, it was standard practice to hold an institution's top-ranking medical officer responsible for all staff employed at the facility, but this new ruling was upheld upon appeal and was subsequently adopted in other U.S. states. It was then extended beyond hospitals to include all other types of healthcare facilities and healthcare-related small businesses, such as dental practices, medical specialist practices, and family physicians' offices.

Bibliography

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"Negligence." Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School, www.law.cornell.edu/wex/negligence. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

Owen, David G. "The Five Elements of Negligence." Hofstra Law Review, vol. 35, no. 4, 2007, pp. 1671–86, scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2282&context=hlr. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

Thompson, Scott. "What Is the Corporate Negligence Doctrine?" Houston Chronicle, smallbusiness.chron.com/corporate-negligence-doctrine-65624.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

"The Tort of Negligence." Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, www.accaglobal.com/ca/en/student/exam-support-resources/fundamentals-exams-study-resources/f4/technical-articles/tort-negligence.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.