Question

What are the four elements of negligence, and what constitutes negligent health care? What types of actions constitute “ordinary” negligence and what are considered “gross” negligence? When are a health care practitioner’s actions criminal, negligent, or both? What defines an intentional tort?

Answer 1

1. Duty - The perpetrator has a lawful duty to the claimant under the circumstances.
2. Breach - The perpetrator breached that lawful duty by acting wrongfully or failing to act in a prescribed way;
3. Causation - It was the perpetrator's activities (or inaction) that essentially caused the accuser's injury; and
4. Damages - The accuser was harmed or injured as a result of the perpetrator's actions.

Medical negligence occurs when the medical consultant fails to deliver the care that is expected thus causing in harm or demise of the patient.

Gross negligence is a cognizant and voluntary neglect of the requirement to use sensible care, which is likely to cause predictable serious injury or damage to heath, property, or both. It is behavior that is extreme as compared to ordinary Negligence, which is a sheer failure to practice reasonable care. Ordinary negligence and gross negligence differ in grade of negligence, though both differ from wilful and malicious conduct, which is conduct that is practically considered to cause injury.

A healthcare practitioner’s actions are criminal when the negligence is gross in degree, and the intent behind the negligence while deliberate needs to be proven to be malicious and objectively proven for criminally culpable state of mind. And the case should be hugely deviant from the standard care.

An intentional tort is a class of torts that defines a civil wrong resulting from an intentional act on the part of the wrongdoer. While a tort in general is an act that is intentionally done to harm another person.