Tort law: Negligence - Gross negligence

Law School

Gross negligence is the "lack of slight diligence or care" or "a conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party." In some jurisdictions a person injured as a result of gross negligence may be able to recover punitive damages from the person who caused the injury or loss.

Negligence is the opposite of diligence, or being careful. The standard of ordinary negligence is what conduct deviates from the proverbial "reasonable person". By extension, if somebody has been grossly negligent, that means they have fallen so far below the ordinary standard of care that one can expect, to warrant the label of being "gross". Gross negligence may thus be described as reflecting "the want of even slight or scant care", falling below the level of care that even a careless person would be expected to follow. While some jurisdictions equate the culpability of gross negligence with that of recklessness, most differentiate it from simple negligence in its degree.

2020-08-17 5 min

Available Results

Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.