duty

A human action which is exactly conformable to the laws which require us to obey them. Legal or moral obligation. An obligation that one has by law or contract. Obligation to conform to legal standard of reasonable conduct in light of apparent risk. Karrar v. Barry County Road Com'n, 127 Mich.App. 821, 339 N.W.2d 653, 657.

Obligatory conduct or service. Mandatory obligation to perform. Huey v. King, 220 Tenn. 189, 415 S.W.2d 136.

An obligation, recognized by the law, requiring actor to conform to certain standard of conduct for protection of others against unreasonable risks. Samson v. Saginaw Professional Bldg., Inc., 44 Mich. App. 658, 205 N.W.2d 833, 835.

See also legal duty

- obligation.

A thing due; that which is due from a person; that which a person owes to another. An obligation to do a thing. A word of more extensive signification than "debt," although both are expressed by the same Latin word "debitum."

Sometimes, however, the term is used synonymously with debt. Those obligations of performance, care, or observance which rest upon a person in an official or fiduciary capacity; as the duty of an executor, trustee, manager, etc. In negligence cases term may be defined as an obligation, to which law will give recognition and effect, to comport to a particular standard of conduct toward another, and the duty is invariably the same, one must conform to legal standard of reasonable conduct in light of apparent risk. Merluzzi v. Larson, 96 Nev. 409, 610 P.2d 739, 741.

The word "duty" is used throughout the Restatement of Torts to denote the fact that the actor is required to conduct himself in a particular manner at the risk that if he does not do so he becomes subject to liability to another to whom the duty is owed for any injury sustained by such other, of which that actor's conduct is a legal cause. Restatement, Second, Torts No. 4.

See care

- due care.

In its use in jurisprudence, this word is the correlative of right. Thus, wherever there exists a right in any person, there also rests a corresponding duty upon some other person or upon all persons generally. It also denotes a tax or impost due to the government upon the importation or exportation of goods.

See 19 U.S.C.A.

See also customs

- customs duties

- tariff

- toll

- tonnage-duty

- judicial duty

@ duty free

Products or merchandise of foreign origin that are not subject to import or export taxes.

See customs duties

@ duty of tonnage

A charge upon a vessel as an instrument of commerce for entering, lying in or leaving a port, and includes all taxes and duties, regardless of name or form. Marine Lighterage Corporation v. Luckenbach S. S. Co., 139 Misc. 612, 248 N.Y.S. 71, 72

@ duty of water

Such a quantity of water necessary when economically conducted and applied to land without unnecessary loss as will result in the successful growing of crops

@ duty to act

Obligation to take some action to prevent harm to another and for failure of which there may or may not be liability in tort depending upon the circumstances and the relationship of the parties to each other.

See emergency doctrine

- humanitarian doctrine

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