Also known as: reckless · recklessness · recklessly · reckless behavior
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Conduct involving a conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a harmful result will occur. The actor perceives the risk yet proceeds anyway.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Robert Rivera drives his truck at night at 60 m.p.h. down the center of a two-lane highway knowing oncoming traffic is heavy. He collides with another vehicle and kills the driver. The extreme recklessness satisfies the abandoned-and-malignant-heart form of malice aforethought, elevating the killing to murder.
Renata Russo, aware that her warehouse stores flammable chemicals, stores them near an open flame despite knowing the high risk of explosion. When the building ignites and injures workers, her conscious disregard of the known risk meets the recklessness mens rea required for the offense.
Riley Rivera, rushing through a crowded hallway, shoves past several people without looking and knocks a cup of coffee onto a bystander. The contact is offensive but Riley lacked intent to cause it. The unreasonable risk alone produces only negligence or recklessness, not battery liability.
Rina Rahman, a reporter, publishes an article accusing a city official of corruption after receiving an anonymous tip she never verifies. She publishes despite knowing the source is unreliable. The reckless disregard for truth satisfies the actual-malice standard and defeats the official's defamation claim.
Ralph Richardson, managing member of an LLC, commits the company to a high-risk derivatives trade after ignoring internal risk models and member warnings. The conscious disregard of known dangers constitutes reckless conduct that breaches the statutory duty of care.
Ricardo Rojas tells his elderly aunt that her favorite nephew has already received his inheritance share, knowing the statement is false. He makes the statement to induce a larger bequest to himself. The reckless falsehood procures the donative transfer by fraud.
Reckless conduct requires the actor to perceive a substantial risk and consciously disregard it, while negligence involves failure to perceive or avoid a risk that a reasonable person would have recognized. The distinction determines whether liability is ordinary negligence, gross negligence, or an elevated mental state supporting punitive damages or involuntary manslaughter.
At common law, extreme recklessness showing a depraved, abandoned, and malignant heart supplies implied malice and supports a murder conviction. The risk must be unjustifiably high and the indifference to human life greater than that required for involuntary manslaughter.
…charge, however, that the jury must be "convinced" of malice, in the sense of "actual intent" to harm or "gross negligence and recklessness," to make such an award, and he also refused to require that a verdict for respondent differentiate between compensatory and punitive damages. The judge rejected petitioners' contention…
…official prove “actual malice”—that the defendant published the defamatory statement with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. The rule was extended to public figures in Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts , 388 U.S. 130 (1967). The Court has not yet defined the precise…
…a vital role to play in ensuring that elections remain at least minimally open, fair, and competitive. But it is the height of recklessness
…in many decisions under the provisions of state constitutions.[^maj-11] The importance of this immunity has not lessened. While reckless assaults upon public men, and efforts to bring obloquy upon those who are endeavoring faithfully to discharge official duties, exert a baleful influence and deserve the severest…
…turn was constitutional. Hymon had employed the only reasonable and practicable means of preventing Garner's escape. Garner had "recklessly and heedlessly attempted to vault over the fence to escape, thereby assuming the risk of being fired upon." App. to Pet. for Cert. A10. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed…
No. Under the Restatement, an act that creates only an unreasonable risk of offensive contact, even if reckless, does not constitute battery unless the actor intended to cause the harmful or offensive contact itself.
A public official must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant published the statement with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth. This actual-malice standard protects First Amendment interests while allowing recovery for knowing or reckless falsehoods.
A member-managed LLC manager breaches the duty of care by engaging in reckless conduct during the company's affairs. Such conduct exposes the manager to personal liability and may disqualify the manager from statutory indemnification.
A donative transfer is procured by fraud when the wrongdoer knowingly or recklessly makes a false representation about a material fact that is intended to and does induce the donor to make a transfer the donor would not otherwise have made.