CARE

As a legal term, this word means diligence, prudence, discretion, attentiveness, watchfulness, vigilance. It is the opposite of negligence or carelessness. There are three degrees of care in the law, corresponding (inversely) to the three degrees of negligence, viz.: slight care, ordinary care, and great care. The exact boundaries between the several degrees of care, and their correlative degrees of carelessness, or negligence, are not always clearly defined or easily pointed out. We think, however, that by “ordinary care” is meant that degree of care which may reasonably be expected from a person in the party’s situation,that is, “reasonable care;” and that “gross negligence” imports not a malicious intention or design to produce a particular injury, but a thoughtless disregard of consequences, the absence, rather than the actual exercise, of volition with reference to results. Neal v. Gillett, 23 Conn. 443. Slight care is such as persons of ordinary. prudence usually exercise about their own affairs of slight importance. Rev. Codes N. D. 1899,