What constitutes negligence per se?
Firstly, for an act to be considered as negligence per se, a law must have been violated. A death that results from a lawful (albeit reckless or negligent act) may be considered under other types of negligence, but it cannot be considered negligence per se. Additionally, that law must be a safety-related law, and the harm that was suffered must be of the kind that the law is protecting against. If a contractor violated a building code, but someone was injured inside as a result of something unrelated to the violation, it does not fulfill the criteria. Finally, the victim must be in the class of people that the law was designed to protect, but since most public safety laws are designed to protect “the general public”, this is typically the easiest criterion to fulfill.
