negligence /neg″lijens/ [L, negligentia, carelessness] , (in law) the commission of an act that a prudent person would not have done or the omission of a duty that a prudent person would have fulfilled, resulting in injury or harm to another person. A professional person is negligent if harm to a client results from such an act or such failure to act, but it must be proved that other prudent members of the same profession would ordinarily have acted differently under the same circumstances. Compare malpractice. Kinds include misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance.
