NEGLECT

Omission; failure to do something that one is bound, to do; carelessness. The term is used in the law of bailment as synonymous with “negligence”. But the latter word is the closer translation of the Latin “negligentia.” As used in respect to the payment of money, refusal is the failure to pay money when demanded; neglect is the failure to pay money which the party is bound to pay without demand. Kimball v. Rowland, 6 Gray (Mass.) 224. The term means to omit, as to neglect business or payment or duty or work, and is generally used in this sense. It does not generally imply carelessness or imprudence, but simply an emission to do or perform some work, duty, or act. Rosenplaenter v. Roessle, 54 N. Y. 262. Culpable neglect. In this phrase, the word “culpable” means not criminal, but censurable; and, when the term is applied to the omission by a person to preserve the means of enforcing his own rights, censurable is more nearly an equivalent. As he has merely lost a right of action which he might voluntarily relinquish, and has wronged nobody but himself, culpable neglect conveys the idea of neglect which exists where the loss can fairly be ascribed to the party’s own carelessness, improvidence, or folly. Bank v. Wright, 8 Allen (Mass.) 121; Bennett v. Bennett, 03 Me. 241, 44 Atl 894. Willful neglect. Willful neglect is the neglect of the husband to provide for his wife the common necessaries of life, he having the ability to do so; or it is the failure to do so by reason of idleness, profligacy, or dissipation. Civil Code Cal.