An improper act or omission, which arises from ignorance, carelessness, or negligence. The act or omission must not have been meditated, and must have caused some injury to another. Arizona law, A.R.S. § 12-2506(F)(2) defines 'fault' as an actionable breach of legal duty, act or omission proximately causing or contributing to injury or damages sustained by a person seeking recovery, including negligence in all of its degrees, contributory negligence, assumption of risk, strict liability, breach of express or implied warranty of a product, products liability and misuse, modification or abuse of a product. See also Revised Arizona Jury Instructions (Civil), at 31 (3d ed. 1997) (''fault' is an actionable wrong, plus causation').
Faults or negligence are usually divided into, gross, ordinary, and slight.
1. Gross fault or neglect, consists in not observing that care towards others, which a man the least attentive, usually takes of his own affairs. Such fault may, in some cases, afford a presumption of fraud, and in very gross cases it approaches so near, as to be almost undistinguishable from it, especially when the facts seem hardly consistent with an honest intention. But there may be a gross fault without fraud.