Define duty of care in negligence.

• A. A legal obligation to take reasonable care to avoid causing foreseeable harm to others.
• B. A moral obligation to help others regardless of consequences.
• C. A requirement to fulfill every possible duty of safety, no matter the cost.
• D. A discretionary standard that only applies in rare circumstances.

Answer: (A)

The key idea is that in negligence there is a legal obligation to act with reasonable care to avoid causing harm to others who could foreseeably be affected by your actions. This duty is not just a moral urge—it's a recognized legal relationship: you must take care to prevent harm that a reasonable person would anticipate in the same situation. The standard of care looks at what a reasonable person would do, taking into account the risks involved and the precautions that would usually be appropriate.

The duty arises in situations where the law recognises a relationship or proximity between people—like a driver and other road users, or an occupier and visitors—and the question is whether it’s fair and just to impose a duty in that context. A useful framework (Caparo) considers foreseeability of harm, closeness of the relationship, and whether imposing a duty would be fair, just, and reasonable.

So the correct description matches this legal obligation to act with reasonable care to avoid foreseeable harm. Moral obligations to help regardless of consequences aren’t the same as a legal duty, and the law doesn’t require fulfilling every possible safety duty in every circumstance, nor is the duty a discretionary checkbox applied only in rare cases.