ABSTRACT
Negligence, including medical negligence, is the failure to use reasonable care to avoid harming others and is part of tort law. The guiding principle behind negligence law is that all humans have a right to go about their daily activities and routines without being thoughtlessly injured by others. The law presumes and requires that persons possess an ordinary capacity to avoid harming those around them. Proximate cause is better understood as a foreseeable harm. When the type of harm is the kind that would normally be anticipated from the carelessness or mistakes made, it is termed foreseeable harm. The legal rationale for proximate cause is straightforward. The law imparts a legal duty to only prevent foreseeable harm to others. Therefore, those engaged in a harmful activity are legally liable only for harms that are reasonably anticipated from that activity. This is why proximate cause in the form of a foreseeable harm is the third essential element of proving negligence.
