Also known as: utmost degree of care · extraordinary care · highest degree of care
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A high degree of care that a prudent person exercises in dealing with very important personal affairs or that a professional exercises in a given situation.
Uriel Urban kept a tiger in a reinforced enclosure with daily inspections and multiple barriers. A guest wandered off the path during an emergency and suffered a bite. Uriel had met the highest standard of confinement efforts yet remained liable for the injury under the governing rule.
Umeko Uchida owned a dog that had previously nipped a worker. She installed extra fencing and supervised all interactions with the highest level of attention. The dog bit a visitor anyway. Umeko faced liability despite those extensive precautions.
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Upland Industries conducted aerial pesticide application using advanced equipment and strict wind monitoring protocols. Spray drifted onto a neighbor's property despite those measures. Upland remained subject to liability for the resulting harm.
Unity Capital used controlled explosives for a logging project and employed every available safety protocol. Vibrations still damaged a nearby home. The company could not escape responsibility even after demonstrating the highest preventive efforts.
Universal Motors installed tubing that later ruptured under normal pressure. The manufacturer had followed all industry testing and quality protocols. Liability attached regardless of those extensive precautions taken during production.
United Bank marketed a product with full internal compliance reviews and risk assessments. A jury imposed punitive damages after finding harm to consumers. The bank's documented high-level preventive steps did not shield it from the award.
No. The rule imposes liability on a possessor of a wild animal for harm caused by the animal even when the possessor has exercised the utmost care to confine it or prevent harm.
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Utmost care is a higher degree of care than the reasonable care required in ordinary negligence cases. Negligence uses the standard of a reasonably prudent person under the circumstances rather than the highest conceivable level of precaution.
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Yes. Some jurisdictions impose a heightened duty of utmost care on common carriers toward passengers, though the precise application varies and is often contrasted with the ordinary reasonable care standard.
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No. One who carries on an abnormally dangerous activity remains subject to liability for resulting harm even after exercising the utmost care to prevent it.
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…as he chose; the defendant was responsible for the consequences of the blow, unless it appeared that he was in the exercise of extraordinary care, so that the accident was inevitable, using the word inevitable not in a strict but a popular sense." "If, however, the plaintiff, when he met with the injury, was not in the exercise of…