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Contractual negligence: Difference between revisions
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Are these the examples an exclusion from liability for negligence is meant to cover? Surely not: a contractual obligation is a contractual obligation. Doing things this way betrays laziness or a lack of legal acuity from your [[mediocre lawyer|counsel]]. It is not that you wish to exclude contractual liability if a party hasn’t been negligent: what you mean to say is that your counterparty ''is only obliged in the first place to exercise a certain [[standard of care]]''<ref>Or, perhaps, should be excused should a [[force majeure]] come about.</ref>. If you craft the contract that way, you don’t ''need'' to exclude liability for prudent behaviour, because thast is all you had to do to comply with the contract in the first place. | Are these the examples an exclusion from liability for negligence is meant to cover? Surely not: a contractual obligation is a contractual obligation. Doing things this way betrays laziness or a lack of legal acuity from your [[mediocre lawyer|counsel]]. It is not that you wish to exclude contractual liability if a party hasn’t been negligent: what you mean to say is that your counterparty ''is only obliged in the first place to exercise a certain [[standard of care]]''<ref>Or, perhaps, should be excused should a [[force majeure]] come about.</ref>. If you craft the contract that way, you don’t ''need'' to exclude liability for prudent behaviour, because thast is all you had to do to comply with the contract in the first place. | ||
====But | ====But isn’t this an easier catch-all?==== | ||
“But”, yon lazy [[mediocre lawyer|attorney]] wails, “adopting that approach means we have to write in a standard of care to every obligation under the contract! As a plain English denizen you | “But”, yon lazy [[mediocre lawyer|attorney]] wails, “adopting that approach means we have to write in a standard of care to every obligation under the contract! As a plain English denizen you can’t really want that? Surely it's easier to carve it out!” | ||
But a contract is meant to stipulate what you are expected to do. For some obligations, a “reasonable standard of care” rider is not appropriate. The payment of money, for example. | But a contract is meant to stipulate what you are expected to do. For some obligations, a “reasonable standard of care” rider is not appropriate. The payment of money, for example. | ||