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Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'', from ''neglegere'', to neglect, literally "not to pick up something") is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by ''carelessness'', not intentional harm. According to Jay M. Feinman of the Rutgers University School of Law; Through civil litigation, if an injured person proves that another person acted negligently to cause their injury, they can recover damages to compensate for their harm. Proving a case for negligence can potentially entitle the injured plaintiff to compensation for harm to their body, property, mental well-being, financial status, or intimate relationships. However, because negligence cases are very fact-specific, this general definition does not fully explain the concept of when the law will require one person to compensate another for losses caused by accidental injury. Further, the law of negligence at common law is only one aspect of the law of liability. Although resulting damages must be proven in order to recover compensation in a negligence action, the nature and extent of those damages are not the primary focus of negligence cases. ==Elements of negligence claims== Negligence suits have historically been analyzed in stages, called elements, similar to the analysis of crimes (see Element (criminal law)). An important concept related to elements is that if a plaintiff fails to prove any one element of his claim, he loses on the entire tort claim. For example, assume that a particular tort has five elements. Each element must be proven. If the plaintiff proves only four of the five elements, the plaintiff has not succeeded in making out his claim. Common law jurisdictions may differ slightly in the exact classification of the elements of negligence, but the elements that must be established in every negligence case are: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Each is defined and explained in greater detail in the paragraphs below. Negligence can be conceived of as having just three elements - conduct, causation and damages. More often, it is said to have four (duty, breach, causation and punitive damages) or five (duty, breach, actual cause, proximate cause, and damages). Each would be correct, depending on how much specificity someone is seeking. "The broad agreement on the conceptual model", writes Professor Robertson of the University of Texas at Austin, "entails recognition that the five elements are best defined with care and kept separate. But in practice", he goes on to warn, "several varieties of confusion or conceptual mistakes have sometimes occurred."〔Deakin, Tort Law, 218〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「negligence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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