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Template:Liability ladder: Difference between revisions
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===The ladder of liability=== | ===The ladder of liability=== | ||
In some strands of legal endeavour (notably in the criminal law and the [[tort]]ious world of [[tort|civil wrong-doing]], | In some strands of legal endeavour (notably in the criminal law and the [[tort]]ious world of [[tort|civil wrong-doing]]), your [[mens rea|mental state]] is important in assessing your responsibility for what you done; in others (principally the cool and dispassionate law of [[contract]]) it is, for the most part, not. Contracts are contracts, your signed up voluntarily; ''why'' you didn’t do what you said you would is beside the point. | ||
This is less so for the criminal law and relations between unacquainted neighbours, where we impute certain standards of ''care''. | |||
Where the '''[[Inadvertence|inadvertent]]''' is blameless, neither knowing the risk she runs, nor being reasonably expected to be able to anticipate it; and the '''[[Negligence|negligent]]''' has some civil, civic responsibility for what befalls his [[neighbour]] on the premise that, since that odious hypothetical fellow plucked from the pews of the sacred [[Man on the Clapham Omnibus|Clapham omnibus]] would have seen it, so should he, even though in point of fact he did not; the '''[[gross negligence|grossly negligent]]''' is a poor, confused, careless American; the '''[[reckless]]''' sees the risk, all right, and decides to plough on and take it, notwithstanding, that she might have no particular wish or expectation that a calumny should befall ''anyone'', least of all the [[plaintiff]]. | Where the '''[[Inadvertence|inadvertent]]''' is blameless, neither knowing the risk she runs, nor being reasonably expected to be able to anticipate it; and the '''[[Negligence|negligent]]''' has some civil, civic responsibility for what befalls his [[neighbour]] on the premise that, since that odious hypothetical fellow plucked from the pews of the sacred [[Man on the Clapham Omnibus|Clapham omnibus]] would have seen it, so should he, even though in point of fact he did not; the '''[[gross negligence|grossly negligent]]''' is a poor, confused, careless American; the '''[[reckless]]''' sees the risk, all right, and decides to plough on and take it, notwithstanding, that she might have no particular wish or expectation that a calumny should befall ''anyone'', least of all the [[plaintiff]]. | ||