What Does “Breach of Duty” Mean?

Short answer: A breach of duty happens when someone who owes you a duty of care fails to act the way a reasonable person would in the same situation, such as a driver running a red light or a store ignoring a spill. In a Florida negligence case, proving breach is one of four elements you need to recover compensation.

In law, the word “breach” refers to a violation of a legal responsibility or duty. A breach of contract means that someone has failed to abide by the terms of the contract.

In personal injury law, breach is one of the elements of negligence. In this context, a breach describes a failure to abide by one’s duty of care to another person.

 If you have legal questions, make sure you get in touch with an experienced attorney.

How a Breach of Duty Occurs in a Negligence Case

A negligence claim is the most common way to seek compensation after an accident. Negligence lawsuits are common after slip and falls, medical malpractice, and car accidents, to name a few.

There are four main elements in a negligence case:

• The defendant owed the plaintiff (injury victim) a duty of care
• The defendant breached their duty of care
• The breach caused the plaintiff harm, and
• The harm resulted in damages

An injury victim must prove all four of these elements to win a negligence case. A victim’s own level of fault can also affect how much compensation they receive. For a broader look at these elements, see what a tort claim is.

What is a Duty of Care?

When someone has a duty of care, it means that they have a legal responsibility to avoid harming another person. Duties arise from law, custom, or relationships. For example, if you are driving along a Florida road, you owe a duty of care to other drivers to drive carefully and obey all traffic laws. Traffic laws impose this duty on all drivers.

Likewise, medical providers have a duty to provide the proper standard of care to their patients. If a doctor commits medical malpractice, then they have breached their duty of care.

Finally, property owners, such as businesses and restaurants, have a duty to maintain safe premises for guests. Public and private property owners are subject to this duty as well. If a property owner fails to address dangerous conditions on their property, they may have breached their duty.  

How Does a Breach Occur in a Negligence Case

The reasonable person standard is used to determine whether a breach has occurred in a given situation. A person breaches their duty to another person when they fail to act as a reasonable person under the circumstances. A reasonable person acts with common sense and prudence to avoid injuring others.

A jury ultimately decides whether a defendant’s conduct was reasonable or unreasonable. If their conduct was unreasonable, the jury may find that the defendant breached their duty. In many cases, this analysis will be simple.

For example, say a driver runs a red light and crashes into another car. Remember, a driver has a duty to obey traffic laws and drive safely. The jury would likely find that a reasonable person obeys traffic laws and signals to avoid putting others at risk of harm. They would presumably find that a reasonable person would not run a red light because it presents an unreasonable risk of injury to other drivers and pedestrians. 

Therefore, the jury would find the defendant breached their duty to obey traffic laws and drive safely.

Examples of Breach of Duty in the Clearwater Area

• A crash on U.S. 19. A driver checking their phone rear-ends a car stopped in traffic. A reasonable driver watches the road, so the distracted driver likely breached their duty. Clearwater car accidents
• A fall at a Clearwater Beach business. A restaurant knows its deck boards are loose and does nothing to fix or mark them. A reasonable property owner repairs or warns about a known hazard, so the owner likely breached their duty. Premises liability
• A medical error. A provider fails to read an X-ray that would have shown a serious condition. A reasonable provider reviews test results, so the failure may be a breach of the standard of care.

What If You Also Breached a Duty?

Florida follows modified comparative negligence. If the jury finds that you also acted unreasonably, your compensation is reduced by your share of fault, and if you are found more than 50% at fault, you cannot recover. That is why insurers often argue that the injured person breached a duty too, such as by speeding or ignoring a warning sign. Learn more about contributory fault in Florida.

What Is Negligence Per Se?

Negligence per se means the breach is established by the violation of a law designed to protect people like the injured person. Instead of arguing about what a reasonable person would do, the plaintiff shows that the defendant broke the statute.

How a Breach of Duty Occurs in a Strict Liability Case

Strict liability laws seek to protect public health, safety, and welfare. An injury victim may not have to prove negligence to recover compensation for their damages in certain cases. They only have to show that another party engaged in prohibited conduct that caused them harm. See what strict liability means.

Examples of strict liability cases include:

• Abnormally dangerous activities: These are activities that always create a foreseeable risk of serious harm. Some activities are so dangerous that there is a high potential for harm even when taking precautions. Examples include using explosives, nuclear power, and other highly dangerous activities.  
• Product liability: All product manufacturers and distributors have a duty of care to ensure that their products don’t harm consumers. If a company manufactures a defective product that injures consumers, the company can be held strictly liable for its conduct. See defective products.
• Dog bites and wild animal ownership: All animal owners have a duty to protect the public from their animals. If a dog bites you, then the owner of that dog can be held strictly liable for your injuries. Likewise, if a person owns a wild animal, they can be strictly liable when the animal attacks another person. Wild animal ownership creates foreseeable risks of danger to the community.

You can only file a strict liability claim in specific situations. Contact a personal injury lawyer for help understanding your claim.

If you were hurt in an accident, you may be entitled to compensation. A Clearwater injury lawyer can help you prove that another party breached their duty and injured you. They can conduct investigations to gather critical evidence and identify all at-fault parties. They can also show the insurance company or jury how the at-fault party violated their duty to you. Two of our attorneys at Perenich, Caulfield, Avril & Noyes are Board Certified in Civil Trial Law by The Florida Bar, and we have represented injured people in Clearwater since 1955. Contact us today for a free consultation.