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Criminal Liability Part 1

What are the Basics of Criminal Liability?

Criminal liability occurs when an individual or a corporation commits an offense against an existing criminal law. In most criminal liability cases, there is typically a matter where the State is prosecuting a defendant before a magistrate, or in some more serious cases, a judge and jury. For somebody to be convicted of an offense regarding criminal liability, the burden of proof needs to be weighted 'beyond reasonable doubt'. In a criminal trial, evidence, eye-witnesses and other information is used to prove an offense has been convicted by the defendant beyond this concept of reasonable doubt. Criminal Liability differs from Civil Liability in that it provides one individual to sue another individual for damages regarding a particular offense. This is often related to personal injury, but is also inclusive of other forms of 'loss', such as property damage, financial loss, or even crimes of defamation or negligence. Defamation and negligence are civil offenses which damage an individual's reputation, which cause a form of 'loss' which is viable under civil law. In civil law cases, the plaintiff is usually seeking to claim a particular monetary value from the defendant to compensate for their personal injury or loss. One more difference between criminal liability and civil liability is that the burden of proof needs to simply rest in the 'balance of probabilities', as opposed to 'beyond reasonable doubt'. However, if a civil offence is committed, but there is still a related criminal act, the burden of proof can be reversed to the stricter method of 'beyond reasonable doubt', making it a harsher standard for punishment.

Is Criminal Liability Just Relative to a Crime of Physical Action?

Generally yes, but it should be noted that criminal liability offenses usually contain a mental or emotional element in addition to the physical element to the crime. An example of this would be the crime of fraud, which in addition to forging another person's identity there is the mental act of dishonesty. At the end of the day, to be found guilty of the offence and be 'criminally liable' the individual must be fully aware of the crime that they are committing and aware that they have in fact broken the law. This is particularly useful in the sense that children are not liable for their offence due to having an improper understanding of criminal liability. This differs from state-to-state and country-to-country, but it is generally recognised that a child is a person less than 14 years of age. In these cases, there is a release of liability for the child and the parent or parents of the individual that committed the offence may be liable. It should be noted, that in spite of this, various offences, such as road traffic infringements and environmental law offences - such as littering - have been structured so that the 'mental element' is not required to convict the individual.

What Are The Penalties for Criminal Liability?

The theoretical concept of punishment is to make the offender feel shame, remorse and guilt for their offense - for an organisation this is no different. For publicly listed organisations, shareholders, and indeed stakeholders want to know that the organisation that they have invested in is remorseful for their actions and are apologetic. Penalties for breaches of criminal liability can vary from minor fines to significant jail terms, or on some occasions, both. In addition, organisations which commit offenses are usually punished more severely than an individual, and for this reason organisations tend to have commercial general liability insurance products to protect them from the dangers of 'going under'. The range of criminal offenses that are covered under these sort of insurance plans include false arrest, damage to the property of others, defamation of character, invasion of privacy, assault, malicious prosecution or accidental bodily injury. Quite obviously, offenses such as violence, theft, price-fixing, etc are not covered by these insurance policies.

Commercial General Liability Insurance is a Must!

Without Commercial General Liability Insurance your organisation is at significant risk of ending up in court! Even the most fragile of business activities can end up with disastrous consequences. It needs to be understood that in many countries, such as Australia there have been new laws introduced to make companies even more liable for particular offenses.
Organisations are now expected to be ethically and socially acceptable like never before. There is such an impetus on businesses doing 'the right thing' that one simply cannot afford to not have general liability insurance. Criminal liability relates to everyone, but in particular organisations need to pay careful attention if they want to enjoy a release of liability when the unexpected occurs. It pays to shop around because there are many terrific benefits available to companies that care.