Negligence

Negligence is a legal term for certain kinds of carelessness, inattention or neglect, especially resulting in harm to another person. It is an ingredient of many torts under civil law. A lawsuit grounded in a claim of negligence might be brought, for example, by someone injured in an auto accident against another driver who he felt caused the acciden by being reckless or irresponsible.

Under law, negligence is usually defined in the context of jury instructions wherein a judge, in language he finds fitting, tells the jury that a party is to be considered negligent if he or she failed to exercise the level of care that a reasonable person, possessed of the same knowledge, would have exercised under the same circumstances. In most jurisdictions, it is necessary to show first that a person had a duty to exercise care in a given situation, and that he breached that duty. In order to prove negligence, it is not necessary to prove harm, but in order for a cause of action to rest in tort, harm must be proven. Hence, it would be meaningless to sue someone for negligence if no harm resulted. Conversely, it is not enough that a harm was done. In order for the harm to be compensible in a negligence lawsuit, the defendant must be shown to have been negligent, and it must be demonstrated that his negligence was the proximate cause of the harm felt by the plaintiff.

The law holds that any reasonable person would, if able, follow the law. Consequently, as a matter of law, a person may be declared by a court liable as a matter of law negligence per se if it is proven that he or she broke the law, e.g. by violating a statute. For example, someone injuring another in an auto accident may be found negligent per se in a civil suit arising from the accident if he was convicted of driving while intoxicated in criminal court.

It is often observed by practitioners in tort law that a prospective plaintiff who has a poor understanding of the foregoing principles will desire to see a significant monetary penalty applied as a result of the outrageousness of a defendant's act. He may feel that he "deserves" an award all out of proportion to his actual misfortune, because of the severe nature of the defendant's carelessness. This is a mistaken view of the authority of the law. Damages are awarded in proportion to the scope of the harm done, not the severety of the negligence. "But he was so careless, he could have killed me!" falls on deaf ears in court. Still, some negligent acts are recognized as a matter of law to be so egregious as to merit financial penalty over and above actual damages, in order to reform the conduct of a malicious or callously indifferent defendant, and, by example, others similarly disposed. This is the purpose of [punitive damages]?. Such acts are rare indeed, well defined in the law of applicable jurisdictions, and limited to the exact conditions of the law under which they may be awarded. Only when the severity of negligence rises to an extreme level (and then, only when harm results therefrom) might it meet the standards required under laws providing for punitive damages.