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Negligence

Carelessness that the law treats as a legal wrong because it fell below the level of care a reasonable person owed to someone else.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

Negligence is the legal name for carelessness that causes harm. It is not the same as being clumsy or unlucky: to hold someone legally responsible, an injured person generally has to establish four separate things - that the other person owed them a duty to be careful, that the person fell short of that duty, that the shortfall actually caused the harm, and that there was real harm to compensate.

The "duty to be careful" is measured against a standard, not against the person's own intentions. Someone can be entirely well-meaning and still be negligent. Conversely, an accident that nobody could reasonably have prevented is usually not negligence at all, which is why "there was an accident" and "someone is liable" are different questions.

Professionals are held to the standard of their profession rather than the standard of an ordinary person, which is why claims against doctors, accountants or lawyers usually require testimony from someone in the same field about what competent practice required.

Where this comes from

Negligence is a creature of state common law. There is no federal statute that defines it, and the elements are stated in slightly different ways from state to state - which is one reason the same set of facts can produce different outcomes in different places.

When people hire a lawyer for this

Most people consult a lawyer about negligence after an injury, when an insurer has made an offer or has denied responsibility. The two questions a lawyer is answering are whether the four elements can actually be established with available evidence, and what the harm is worth - and those are separate questions that non-lawyers frequently merge.

Find a lawyer for this in your state

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.