Also known as: omissions · omitted · omitting · failure to act
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A failure to perform an act or to include a required element when a legal duty or procedural requirement exists.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Otis Olsen stands by while his accomplice sets a fire but personally withholds the water hose he alone controls. The prosecution charges Olsen as a principal in the first degree. The court treats his deliberate failure to act as the omission that completes the offense.
Oceanview Properties files a complaint without any attorney signature. The defendant moves to strike the document. The court orders the pleading stricken because the required signature is missing and the omission is not promptly cured.
Omar Olson suffers a seizure and cannot reach the brake pedal during a crash. Prosecutors attempt to charge him with reckless driving. The court dismisses the case because his liability cannot rest on an involuntary omission he was physically incapable of preventing.
Octavia Okonkwo signs a land-sale contract without discovering a recorded easement. She later seeks to avoid the agreement. The court permits avoidance because her failure to discover the easement does not amount to bad faith.
Oakridge Manufacturing, a limited partnership, faces suit after its general partner neglects to file required safety reports. The injured plaintiff sues the partnership. The court holds the entity liable for the general partner's omission committed in the ordinary course of partnership affairs.
Omega Energy, a general partnership, is sued after one partner fails to obtain required permits during a project. The third party seeks damages from the partnership. The court imposes liability on the firm for the partner's omission performed within the ordinary course of business.
An omission creates criminal liability only when the defendant had a legal duty to act and was physically capable of performing the required act. Courts examine whether the offense definition expressly makes an omission sufficient or whether another source of law imposes the duty.
Supporting sources
An unsigned pleading must be struck unless the omission is promptly corrected after notice. The rule requires at least one attorney of record or an unrepresented party to sign every paper filed with the court.
Supporting sources
A party's fault in failing to know or discover facts does not bar avoidance or reformation unless the fault amounts to a failure to act in good faith and in accordance with reasonable standards of fair dealing.
Supporting sources
…to justify their abridgment." Poe v. Ullman , 367 U. S. 497, 543 (opinion dissenting from dismissal of appeal) (citations omitted). In the words of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, "Great concepts like . . . liberty' . . . were purposely left to gather meaning from experience. For they relate to the whole domain of social…