Which of the following is NOT one of the four criteria courts use to establish negligence?

In establishing the elements of negligence in legal contexts, courts typically focus on four essential criteria: duty, breach of duty, causation, and injury/damages. Duty refers to the legal obligation owed by one party to another, while breach of duty constitutes a failure to meet the established standard of care. Injury or damages pertain to the actual harm suffered by the injured party, which must be proven for a negligence claim.

The concept of abandonment, on the other hand, is not part of the traditional framework for establishing negligence. Abandonment may relate to certain aspects of legal cases, such as when discussing the discontinuation of care by a medical professional, but it does not serve as a fundamental criterion for all negligence claims. Thus, recognizing that abandonment does not fit within the four primary elements of negligence establishes it as the correct answer in this context.