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Home » Law Dictionary » C » CARE

CARE

TheLaw.com Law Dictionary & Black's Law Dictionary 2nd Ed.

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,

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  • DILIGENCE (A) contracts. The doing things in proper time. 2. It may be divided into three…
  • NEGLIGENCE The failure to exercise reasonable or prudent care that an ordinary person would make under…
  • COMPARATIVE Proceeding by the method of comparison; founded on comparison; estimated by comparison. Comparative interpretation. That…
  • GROSS NEGLIGENCE Even greater negligence than ordinary negligence, a failure to use even a small amount of…
  • STANDARD OF CARE The measure of care that a reasonable person should exercise under the circumstances. A person…
  • EXTRAORDINARY Out of the ordinary; exceeding the usual, average, or normal measure or degree. Extraordinary average.…
  • PRUDENCE Carefulness, precaution, attentiveness, and good judgment, as applied to action or conduct. That degree ot…

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