All Maryland personal injury lawyers will tell you "Every person in the state of Maryland owes a duty to each and every other person to act as a reasonable and prudent person under the given circumstances". This is called the standard of care. When this duty is breached it is said the offending person was negligent. The terms "duty of ordinary care" and "duty of reasonable care"  and "standard of care" are interchangeable; they all mean due care—that is, care according to the circumstances of the case.  The duty to exercise reasonable care is a standard of care designed to protect society's members from unreasonable exposure to potentially injurious hazards, and negligence is conduct that falls short of the reasonable-care standard.

In Maryland Car Accident Cases

Maryland personal injury lawyers say the general rule is "every automobile driver must exercise toward every other driver that duty of care which a person of ordinary prudence would exercise under similar circumstances". Baltimore Transit Co., v Prinz 215 Md 398 (1958)

·         Negligent Entrustment: When the owner knows of should know that the person he is lending his vehicle to is likely to use the vehicle in a manner involving risk of harm to others, the owner may be held liable Macky v Dorsey 104 Md. App. 250 (1995). Other wise the mere ownership of a vehicle does not impute liability Toscano v Spriggs 343 Md 320 (1996).

In Maryland Premises Liability Cases (Slip and Fall Cases)

·         The standard of care owed by a possessor of land depends upon the status of the person on the land. There are three categories of status. For example there is an invitee, licensee, or trespasser.

·         As to an Invitee ie: when you are in a store for example: a possessor of land is liable for harm caused to invitees by a condition of which the possessor is aware, or which, in the exercise of due care, he or she should have been aware, and which the possessor should realize involves an unreasonable risk to the invitees and he or she has no reason to believe that they will discover or realize the risk involved. As such the possessor must exercises reasonable care, either to make the condition reasonably safe or to give a warning adequate to enable the invitee to avoid the harm; however, he or she owes no duty to an invitee or business visitor to warn of a dangerous condition which is obvious to a person exercising ordinary care.

·         As to Licensee ie: when you are visiting a friends home for example: There are two types of "licensee". One is the bare licensee and the other a licensee by invitation, or social guest. A licensee is one privileged to enter another's land by virtue of the possessor's consent, for the licensee's own purposes. A licensee must take the property as he or she finds it. The owner or person in charge of the property owes no duty to a licensee to keep the property in a safe condition or to anticipate the licensee's presence and to warn him or her. The only duty an owner or person in charge of property owes to a licensee is that if he or she becomes aware of the licensee's presence, he or she must not injure the licensee willfully or wantonly or entrap the licensee. The duty of a possessor to use care and to avoid injuries to a licensee upon the possessor's land does not arise until he or she has actual knowledge that the licensee is in peril, and if the possessor fails under such circumstances to exercise the care of a reasonably prudent person, he or she is said to act with reckless disregard for the safety of others, and this action is considered willful or wanton misconduct.

In Maryland Malpractice Cases

In medical malpractice cases a medical provider must act as a reasonable and prudent doctor. As such a medical provider is negligent when he/she does something or fails to do some thing  that a reasonably prudent doctor or other health care professional in that field would or would not do under the same or similar circumstances. There is a procedure to be followed in medical malpractice cases before you are eligible to file suit in Maryland. This procedure requires that the negligence of the medical provider must first be certified as a deviation from the standard of care. As such each medical malpractice case requires advances review by an expert.

Vicarious Liability

Strict Liability

Third Party Liability

Joint and Several Liability

Governmental Liability

Employer's Immunity

In Maryland an employer is given certain protections against suits by an employee. For example an employee and his dependants can not maintain an action in tort against the employer since the workers compensation remedy is exclusive Maryland Annotated Code 9-509. A injured employee may maintain suit against a co-employee for the co-employee's negligence. Such as when both are riding is a vehicle and the co-employee negligently causes an accident during the course of employment.