What is meant by the term higher duty of care?

Answer 1

A higher duty of care is when someone is working with a more vulnerable person, i.e. a child, someone who is mentally or physically disabled, this is because they are more likely to have trouble or an accident than a normal person, thus more prostitutions must be taken to ensure their well being and safety.

A duty of care (I know this isn't in the question but it is hard to understand the higher duty of care without this) is when someone has placed their trust in someone else to look after their health and safety, i.e. if you went to a sports centre, you are trusting them to look after you and teach you how to do whatever you are doing safely. They will take precautions to keep you safe, as mentioned above a higher duty of care is simply when more precautions are needed.

Answer 2

Duty of care generally arises in negligence cases. In order to find that one party was negligent to another, the court must first find that the first party owed a duty of care to the second.

A higher duty of care comes up in special circumstances, where the relationship defines that the injured party would have relied more on the negligent person than normal. For example, if a teacher negligently allows a child to be kidnapped, the teacher would owe the child a higher duty of care than some random parent standing in front of the school.

Answer 3

The standard of care applied in ordinary negligence cases is that of a "reasonable person"

However, in some cases, a heightened duty of care arises. This is known as a "fiduciary duty" and it arises when 1 person is in a position of trust to another person.

This includes doctors and patients (the doctor has the fiduciary duty), lawyers and clients, spouses (they owe a fiduciary duty to each other), and the like.

In addition to the ordinary "duty of care", fiduciaries are bound by duties of loyalty, good faith and fair dealing, a duty to serve the interests of the principle above his or her own interests, and several others.