What Is Negligence?

Negligence Is Simply Defined as Being a Failure to Act As a Reasonable Person Would Within Similar Circumstances and Is a Duty Owed to All Persons Who Ought to Reasonably Be In Mind As Persons That May Be Affected.


Understanding Negligence Liability Principles Including Duty of Care and Breach of Standard of Care Concepts

Negligence Liability Principles Involving the General Concepts of What Constitutes As Negligent Conduct Negligence claims are among the most frequent types of claims made in lawsuits. Negligence claims may involve harm to a person or persons or may involve damage to property. Negligence arises due to carelessness including a lack of reasonable safety precautions or a lack of proper execution of personal activities or business operations.

The Law

What constitutes as negligence is defined in a vague manner intended to enable application to a broad spectrum of possible scenarios and was explained very simply in Ryan v. Victoria (City), [1999] 1 S.C.R. 201, and also Seyom v. TTC, 2018 ONSC 6848 wherein each it was said:


[28]  Conduct is negligent if it creates an objectively unreasonable risk of harm.  To avoid liability, a person must exercise the standard of care that would be expected of an ordinary, reasonable and prudent person in the same circumstances.  Legislative standards are relevant to the common law standard of care, but the two are not necessarily co-extensive.  The fact that a statute prescribes or prohibits certain activities may constitute evidence of reasonable conduct in a given situation, but it does not extinguish the underlying obligation of reasonableness.  By the same token, mere compliance with a statute does not, in and of itself, preclude a finding of civil liability.  Statutory standards can, however, be highly relevant to the assessment of reasonable conduct in a particular case, and in fact may render reasonable an act or omission which would otherwise appear to be negligent.


[6]   Generally speaking, negligence is the doing of something which a reasonably prudent person would not do, or the failure to do something which a reasonably prudent person would do, under circumstances similar to that found in a case.  Negligence is relative to the circumstances.  Negligent conduct gives rise, through an act or omission, to an unreasonable risk of harm.

Specific Elements

A negligence case may be successfully litigated when:

  • A duty of care was owed by the defendant;
  • A standard of care was breached by unreasonable conduct;
  • A foreseeable harm was caused as a result of the breach; and
  • A public policy that would negate liability is absent.

These elements as must be proven to establish a negligence case were summarized in Case v. Pattison, 2023 ONCA 529, where it was stated:


[10]  A successful claim for negligence requires proof of a duty of care, breach of the standard of care, compensable damage, and causation: Cooper v. Hobart, 2001 SCC 79, [2001] 3 S.C.R. 537, at paras. 30-39; Mustapha v. Culligan of Canada Ltd., 2008 SCC 27, [2008] 2 S.C.R. 114, at para. 3Hill v Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Police Services Board, 2007 SCC 41, [2007] 3 S.C.R. 129, at para. 96. ...

Duty of Care

Without a duty of care owed to a Plaintiff by a Defendant, the possibility of a successful negligence case fails to exist.  What is meant by duty of care is simply whether a person is legally required to show any concern for the harm that may come to another person.

“The duty of care in negligence law is based upon a relationship of proximity between parties which requires one person to take reasonable care for the protection of the other.”
Lewis Klar, Tort Law, 3rd ed.  (Toronto: Carswell, 2003) at page 153

The duty of care owed to those within a relationship of proximity is known as the "neighbour principle" per the precedent in Donoghue v. Stevenson, [1932] A.C. 562 where it was said at page 580:


You must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbour.  Who, then, in law is my neighbour?  The answer seems to be - persons who are so closely and directly affected by my act that I ought reasonably to have them in contemplation as being so affected when I am directing my mind to the acts or omissions which are called into question.

Standard of Care

The standard of care in negligence law is based upon the failure to do what a reasonable person would do, or failure to refrain from doing what a reasonable person would refrain from doing, when faced with the same circumstances; Seyom at paragraph 6.  It is important to keep in mind that a reasonable person is merely a fictitious person.  The test is one of whether the risks of harm were reasonably foreseeable such that proper care should be taken at the time, without considering afterward, with 20/20 hindsight, whether the risks of harm were a possibility - as by using such a hindsight test, whenever there has been an occurrence of harm stemming from a risk, the possibility of the risk actually occurring would be shown as absolute.  Determining whether there was a breach of the standard of care is a considerably different question than asking whether an occurrence of a potential risk took place.

Commonly Misunderstood Concepts

Over the years, cases continue to refine and clarify the principles founded in Donoghue; and in particular, those in regards to the general, rather than specific, duty of care as well as to assist in resolving confusion that may arise when attempting to understand the difference between the legal duty of care and the standard of care.  These two important yet separate concepts were well articulated by the Court of Appeal in the case of Rausch v. Pickering (City)2013 ONCA 740 wherein it was stated:


[37]  The foundation of a claim in negligence is the recognition of a duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff.  A duty of care is not a duty to do anything specific: the duty is to take reasonable care to avoid causing foreseeable harm to those with whom one is in a relationship of proximity.

[38]  An error frequently made is conflating the duty of care with the standard of care.  They are discrete concepts.  As the Supreme Court of Canada wrote in Stewart v. Pettie, 1995 CanLII 147 (SCC), [1995] 1 S.C.R.  131, at para.  32, “the question of whether a duty of care exists is a question of the relationship between the parties, not a question of conduct.” The question of what conduct is required to satisfy the duty is a question of the appropriate standard of care.  This important point is expressed in Carolyn Sappideen & Prue Vines, Fleming’s The Law of Torts, 10th ed.  (Sydney: Thomson Reuters, 2011), at pp.  123-24:

The general standard of conduct required by law is a necessary complement of the legal concept of "duty".  There is not only the question "Did the defendant owe a duty to be careful?" but also "What precisely was required of the defendant to discharge it?" Indeed, it is not uncommon to encounter formulations of the standard of care or of some particular precaution that an actor in the defendant’s position should take in terms of "duty", as when it is asserted that a motorist is under a duty to keep a proper lookout or that a person has (or has not) a duty to warn another of a certain risk.  But this method of expression is best avoided.  In the first place, the duty issue is already sufficiently complex without fragmenting it further to cover an endless series of details of conduct.  "Duty" is more appropriately reserved for the problem of whether the relation between the parties (like manufacturer and consumer or occupier and trespasser) warrants the imposition upon one of an obligation of care for the benefit of the other, and it is more convenient to deal with individual conduct in terms of the legal standard of what is required to meet that obligation.  Secondly, it is apt to obscure the division of functions between judge and jury or the distinction between questions of law and fact.  It is for the court to determine the existence of a duty relationship and to lay down in general terms the standard of care by which to measure the defendant's conduct; it is for the jury or judge sitting alone to translate the general into a particular standard suitable for the case in hand and to decide whether that standard has been attained or the duty breached.

[39]  The existence of a duty of care simply means that the defendant is in a relationship of sufficient proximity with the plaintiff that he or she ought to have the plaintiff in mind as a person foreseeably harmed by his or her wrongful actions.  It is not a duty to do anything specific; it is a duty to take reasonable care to avoid causing foreseeable harm: Ryan v. Victoria (City), 1999 CanLII 706 (SCC), [1999] 1 S.C.R.  201, at paras.  25-27.

[40]  If a duty of care is recognized, then the standard of care necessary to discharge the duty and whether it has been breached will be determined at trial.

Accordingly, it appears that a pre-trial review could properly question of whether a legal duty of care exists; and where the answer is negative, litigation involving negligence would cease at an early stage; however, the question of whether the legal standard of care was breached, as a secondary question if the initial duty of care question is answered in the positive, requires evidence at trial so to establish the proper standard of care, the actual level of care as occurred in the circumstances, and to consider whether the level of actual care fell below the level of proper care.

Summary Comment

A review of negligence issues begins with the two key foundations to negligence law being whether a duty of care exists, meaning a duty to act carefully, and then whether the standard of care was breached, meaning was the level of care provided sufficient.  These are merely the initial two key foundations to negligence matters that require review within the litigation process.

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