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Negligence. Well-written law always includes the notion of mens rea: did you do it on purpose, or just do it? As an analog consider the difference between mansl

• tzs 8y ago
  What's confusing me here is that I'm having trouble seeing how it is possible for a CEO or other officer to unintentionally produce a statement certifying that the annual privacy report meets the legal requirements. Suppose Alice is the CEO and Bob is the CPO. Their minions produce the annual privacy report, and give it to Alice and Bob to certify and send to the FTC. Alice and Bob both know that the report does not meet the legal requirements. Alice and Bob nevertheless both certify it and it is sent to the FTC. I don't see what Alice and Bob could do different from each other that could lead to one of them being liable for "intentionally certifying" the bad report and the other being liable for merely "certifying" it. Compare to, say, killing a pedestrian by driving through a crosswalk that you know is occupied. It would then make sense to distinguish between • driving through a crosswalk that you knew to be occupied, and • intentionally driving through a crosswalk that you knew to be occupied. You could do the former by seeing that the crosswalk is occupied, intending to stop when you got closer, getting distracted by something, and losing track of where you are. The intentionally modifier makes sense there because you can unintentionally drive through a crosswalk that you know is occupied. With certifying a report...what? You were not planning on signing the certification, but your secretary accidentally put it in a pile of things awaiting your routine signature and you signed it without realizing what it was?