Foreseeability

Probably the most powerful and most uniform social policy crystallized in the various rules and doctrines of tort law is to be found in the concept of foreseeability or expectability of certain harms from certain types of conduct.

"If you foresee the event and you go forward, then you are criminally negligent," she said, adding, "This was a boat that navigated on the waters of Lake George since 1979. In terms of criminal negligence, there clearly wasn't the foreseeability that there may be in civil negligence."

The foreseeability of that outcome is precisely why the Chinese government has preemptively been pooh-poohing the court and its legitimacy over the past few weeks, and lining up a ragtag set of allies to support its cause. This group includes none of the countries most affected by China's expanded maritime activities, and it features those reliant on Chinese aid or trade.

While examining a boy's eyes the optometrist failed to spot symptoms of a brain condition. The court overturned the conviction for gross negligence manslaughter on the grounds that it undermined the legal test of "foreseeability", which requires proof of a "serious and obvious risk of death" at the time of the error.