nonfeasance

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nonfeasance

A failure to act when the law required an action.Real estate brokers are supposed to deposit earnest money checks as soon as possible. If the broker neglects to deposit the check, he or she is guilty of a nonfeasance, even if there was no improper motive and no misuse of the funds. Likewise, if local fire codes require fire extinguishers in the hallways of an office building, and the owner fails to install them, it is guilty of nonfeasance and may be liable for injuries and damages if there is a fire. Contrast with misfeasance, which is doing a legal and proper thing but in an improper manner, and malfeasance which is doing something improper or unlawful.

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at 812 (stating liability attaches for nonfeasance only in event special relationship exists between university and student).

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(133.) See Weinrib, supra note 8, at 253-56 ("Participation by the defendant in the creation of the risk, even if such participation is innocent, is thus the crucial factor in distinguishing misfeasance from nonfeasance."); cf.

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Petersen's distinction between misfeasance and nonfeasance is compelling.

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(69) Relying on the common law distinction between nonfeasance and misfeasance, the court disagreed and held that "at common law one servant is liable to another for his own misfeasance, and there is nothing in the Compensation Act which destroys such liability, or in any way disturbs the common-law relationship existing between co[-]employees." (70)

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2d Dep't 2003) ("The County's alleged negligence in planting the tree from which the limb fell, and alleged failure to maintain the tree constituted nonfeasance, not affirmative negligence." (citations omitted)); Zizzo v.

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Lord Halsbury's Laws of England confused it with tort law's more general distinction between misfeasance and nonfeasance, (112) and the Court of Appeal forgot its existence entirely.

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As the courts are slowly beginning to accept, there is no significant or meaningful difference between misfeasance and nonfeasance; see Rowland v.

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Where a signatory to the contract fails to deliver on that obligation, this is referred to as nonfeasance (non-delivery on contractual obligations).

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The probe underlines nonfeasance on the part of the Finance Ministry.

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nonfeasance," (95) establishes that the military would generally

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The history of the nation's newspapers is replete with similar examples of nonfeasance and, sadly, outright malfeasance.

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a contractor's nonfeasance, unless such a duty is specifically

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