Due Care / Standard of Care in United States

Due Care / Standard of Care 

The care that an ordinarily reasonable and prudent person would use under the same or similar circumstances. Proving the failure to exercise due care toward a person who one has a legal duty resulting in injury to that person establishes a prima facie tort. Due care is one of the standards of care (q.v.) in tort.

Physicians are held to a higher standard of care, not that of a reasonably prudent person but of a reasonably prudent physician.

Gillette v. Tucker, 67 Ohio St. 106, 65 N.E.
865.
Bruni v. Tatsumi, 46 Ohio St.2d 127, 129, 346 N E.2d 673, 676
doctors