Legal Definitions - crassa negligentia

Crassa negligentia, often translated as gross negligence, refers to a severe and significant lack of care that demonstrates an extreme disregard for the safety or rights of others. It goes beyond simple carelessness or ordinary negligence, representing a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or the interests of others. In some legal systems, such extreme carelessness can even be treated as if it were intentional wrongdoing.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Example 1 (Medical Professional): A surgeon performing a routine operation is distracted by personal phone calls throughout the procedure, leading them to mistakenly leave a surgical instrument inside the patient. This is not a simple error but a profound failure to maintain focus and adhere to basic medical protocols, demonstrating an extreme disregard for patient safety.

  Explanation: This illustrates crassa negligentia because the surgeon's actions go far beyond mere oversight. Their deliberate distraction during a critical medical procedure shows a severe and reckless indifference to the patient's well-being, which is a fundamental breach of their professional duty of care.

• Example 2 (Property Owner): A landlord owns an apartment building where the main staircase has been visibly crumbling for months, with large cracks and loose railings reported repeatedly by tenants. Despite these warnings, the landlord takes no action to repair it, leading to a tenant falling and sustaining serious injuries when the staircase collapses.

  Explanation: This situation exemplifies crassa negligentia because the landlord was aware of a severe and dangerous defect and consciously chose to ignore it, despite clear and repeated warnings. This demonstrates an extreme disregard for the safety of their tenants, far exceeding ordinary carelessness.

• Example 3 (Financial Advisor): A financial advisor, entrusted with managing a client's retirement savings, makes a series of highly speculative and unauthorized investments without any research or due diligence, simply based on a "hunch" and without informing the client. This results in the client losing a substantial portion of their life savings.

  Explanation: This represents crassa negligentia because the financial advisor acted with an extreme lack of professional care and responsibility. Their actions were not just poor judgment but a reckless disregard for their fiduciary duty and the client's financial security, showing an indifference to the potential for severe harm.