What Is Negligence Per Se?

Full Video Transcript

Negligence per se means that if a defendant’s actions violated a law or regulation, the actions will be considered negligent. There’s no need to consider what a reasonable person would do. Negligence per se does not exist unless a law that was violated was designed to protect and improve safety. Traffic laws are common examples. In order to prove negligence per se, the injured plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant violated a statute or regulation, the statute or regulation was designed to protect some group of people from harm, the plaintiff was in the group the statute aims to protect, and the defendant’s actions caused the kind of injury that the statute was designed to protect people against.