Personal Injury Law

New York Law--What is Negligence?

By Mark Siesel, Esq.

Negligence is a very common term in New York law, but clients are frequently unsure what this term means. Negligence means a lack of reasonable care which one person owes to another person. It is failing to foresee or anticipate that the wrongdoer's risky conduct will cause injury to another. Negligence is not intentional or willful conduct, which also creates liability and can lead to legal responsibility for injuries caused. In order to recover personal injury damages in New York however, not only must negligence be proven, but it must also be proven that this negligence was the legal cause of injury or damages to another person.

Specific examples of New York negligence include: A driver causing a Brooklyn car accident by going through a traffic light; a landlord causing a Bronx slip and fall accident on an icy staircase by failing to apply sand, salt or otherwise remove the ice despite his knowledge of the condition; an owner of a dog allowing a Westchester dog bite when the dog had bitten a child one week earlier.

Negligence is not intentional or willful conduct, which also creates liability and can lead to legal responsibility for injuries caused. Examples of intentional conduct would be an assault at a bar, or libel, in which the wrongdoer intends to cause the injury, rather than accidentally causing the injury.

Full post as published by New York Legal Blog on November 19, 2007 (boomark / email).