Omission (law)
In law, an omission is a failure to act, which generally attracts different legal consequences from positive conduct. In the criminal law, an omission will constitute an actus reus and give rise to liability only when the law imposes a duty to act and the defendant is in breach of that duty. In tort law, similarly, liability will be imposed for an omission only exceptionally, when it can be established that the defendant was under a duty to act or duty of care.
Tort law[edit]
In the law of negligence, if the defendant's conduct took the form of an omission, rather than a positive act, then it will be more difficult to establish that she owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. The rationale is that a positive duty is more onerous to fulfill than a negative duty, and therefore limits more severely the liberty of the duty-bearer.[9][10]