Negligence

In law, negligence is a kind of legal claim that people and organizations can bring if they are hurt. It is a kind of tort. The law calls someone negligent if he hurts someone else, or someone else's property, because he was not careful enough. In a legal case about negligence, the person who brings the lawsuit is called the plaintiff and the person who is being sued is called the defendant.

Negligence case

The law about negligence is different in many places (or jurisdictions), but for the plaintiff to win, he or she usually has to prove at least four things:

• the defendant had a duty to behave in a certain way;
• the defendant breached that duty;
• the plaintiff was damaged, or harmed as a result; and
• the breach of duty was the cause reasonably predictable cause of the plaintiff's harm.

Duty

The defendant's duty is what the law says that he or she has to do. Usually, the law says that people have to be reasonable. That means they have to be careful, use good judgment, and not be unfair to other people. In some cases, the law tells people that they have special duties. In other cases, the law says that people have no duties at all. For example, in most places that use the common law, a person has no legal duty to rescue another person from harm, even if the rescue is very easy and does not cost anything or put anyone else in danger.

Breach

When people do not follow their duty, the law says that they breach their duty.

Harm

A plaintiff can usually bring a lawsuit only if he or she has been hurt, or has some other legal harm. The law tells people what kinds of injuries people can sue about.

Cause

A plaintiff can usually sue a defendant only if that defendant was the one who hurt the plaintiff. In many cases, it is easy to figure out who hurt someone. But sometimes people get hurt in ways that nobody expects. For example, a defendant might be driving while drunk, and he might hit an electric pole. The electric pole could fall down and cause a neighborhood to lose electric power. As a result, a person two miles away might trip and fall in the dark. The law will decide whether the drunk driver caused the person to trip and fall.

Outside the law

The word negligence is sometimes used outside the law in a similar way. It means that someone has not been careful enough.