What is Scienter in the law?

Answer 1

Scienter is defined as a mental state embracing intent to deceive, manipulate, or defraud. Scienter means to have guilty knowledge. An act is done "knowingly" if done voluntarily and intentionally, and not because of mistake or accident or other innocent reason. It is an element required to be proven in certain crimes.

Scienter is the term in the law for the broad spectrum of awareness a person must have to be considered culpable under laws that require a level of awareness of wrongdoing for a determination of guilt or liability. While most often associated with criminal law, scienter is often a component of laws whose violation can result in punishment other than incarceration. More specifically, scienter is the "requisite intent" for a given crime or legal wrong that has any level of scienter as a component. Reams of treatises, statutes and cases delve into this subject.

To determine guilt or liability under some laws, a specific mental intent or awareness of the likelihood of severe consequences must be proven; murder (sometimes in the "first degree") is a crime requiring such a level of intent. Whether you are aiming at a specific individual with the "intent to kill" or shooting a loaded gun into a crowd of innocents knowing someone could be killed, is an example. Why driving a motor vehicle drunk is not considered as heinous as shooting a loaded gun is a political issue. For tax law, there is a fine difference between "evasion" and "avoidance". One may be able to "avoid" all or some level of a tax consequence under an interpretation of tax law because tax law is not always as clear as one might think and there is room for reasoned argument; but to evade the law becomes an offense because the intent is effectively to "hide" some situation so as not to come under any tax scrutiny whatsoever. "Intentional torts" also typically require this "level" of scienter.

For other kinds of offences or liabilities, some general intent to do wrong, or not act reasonably, is all that is required. For example, reasonable people would probably agree that throwing garbage out the window of a moving car is an unreasonable thing to do (let alone gross, stupid, piggish and disgusting). But what if it glances off another car's windshield, causing that driver to swerve and collide with a third car? The garbage thrower might might liable not only for the damages to the third car in addition to the second, if people would agree that kind of consequence is reasonably foreseeable, but also for violation of motor vehicle rules that require the driver and passengers of a moving vehicle to act in a reasonable an safe way toward others. Much of the law of tort negligence falls into this "level".

Yet others theoretically require no "scienter" whatsoever, and we often call these "quasi-criminal" offences. Jay-walking, speeding, running a stop sign...typically require no proof of any kind of intent; it's more a case of "if you break it, you bought it". And in the law of contracts, typically no intent is required to determine liability: either you complied with the contract, or you "breached" (violated) its terms and conditions, and whether you meant to or not is irrelevant. And in the above example of the garbage thrower, conviction for littering may very well help establish liability for the car damages because the law often imputes intent when criminal and quasi-criminal laws are violated.

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Answer 2

Scienter is a legal term that refers to the knowledge or intent to commit a wrongful act. In legal contexts, it often relates to the mental state of a person when committing a crime or engaging in fraudulent activities. It is used to determine the level of culpability and liability of an individual under the law.