Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Negligence definition

What does Negligence mean? In legal practice, negligence describes a failure to take reasonable care that results in foreseeable harm or loss. It is proved by establishing: (i) a duty of care, (ii) breach of that duty measured against the objective standard of a reasonable person, (iii) causation (factual “but for” cause and legal scope/remoteness), and (iv) recoverable damage. The concept is defined and developed by case law. A classic formulation is that negligence is omitting what a reasonable person would do, or doing what a prudent person would not (Blyth v Birmingham Waterworks (1856) 11 Ex Ch 781). The test is objective: the

Assumption of Responsibility and Non-delegable Duty in Negligence: Public Authorities, Hazardous Activities, Householders and Surveyors

Published by a LexisNexis PI & Clinical Negligence expert

Practice notes

In most situations, practitioners will have little trouble pinpointing an individual or organisation that owed the claimant a duty of care and who, on the face of it, is amenable to suit. Where liability is contested, the dispute typically concerns not the presence of a duty, but whether the defendant has breached that duty. For further guidance, see Practice Notes: Duty of care in personal injury claims and Breach of the duty of care in personal injury claims. There are, however, occasions when the practitioner must grapple with whether the proposed defendant owed any duty of care at all. This Practice Note seeks to draw out broad principles from the case law, while heeding Lady Hale’s caution in the Supreme Court in Woodland v Essex County Council: judges’ explanations for their decisions should not be read as if they were statutory wording, setting rules in stone and preventing further principled development of the duty of care...

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Andrew Wilson

Andrew has more than 25 years’ experience of working in the fields of personal injury and occupational disease litigation, acting for both claimants and defendants. He trained at L Bingham & Co, gaining early experience in a number of important high profile claims involving the MIB. During the 1990s Andrew worked at Hextalls and then Kennedys, predominantly for defendants across a range of motor, employers’ liability and public liability matters many of which involved serious injuries or death. More recently, he has dealt with cases for claimants who have suffered serious injuries or occupational disease. He was a partner in a large specialist practice. He has provided seminars to solicitors and other legal professionals both for an external conference company and in house on the workings of the Civil Procedure Rules in the context of personal injury claims, amongst other...

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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