Lessons · Law foundations · the elements of negligence
Negligence: four lines, always the same four
A negligence claim has four elements: a duty owed, a breach of that duty, causation linking the breach to the harm, and damages.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
It is the most common claim a new paralegal meets, and the four words are the skeleton of every intake sheet, every chronology and every memo about one. Knowing them in order is the difference between reading a file and filing it.
How to think about it
Take them in order, because they depend on each other: no duty means breach is meaningless, and no causation means the harm is somebody else's problem. Write each one with the fact that supports it beside it.
Worked example
Elements of negligence: duty, breach, causation, damages.Four lines. Write them at the top of the memo before anything else.
Duty: was anything owed to this person at all?Measured against what an ordinarily careful person in that position would have done.
Breach: did the conduct fall below what was owed?The gap between what was owed and what was done.
Causation: did the breach cause this harm?Two questions inside one word: would it have happened anyway, and is this harm the kind that breach makes likely.
Damages: what actual loss followed?A near miss with no loss is a fright, not a claim.
Your turn
Duty is measured against a standard person, not against this defendant on a bad day. Write the word for that standard person.
Measured against what a person would have done
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Sliding from breach straight to damages because the loss is large and obvious. Causation is a separate line, and it is the line most often empty in a file that feels strong.