Lethal Negligence

The sin of sloth is generally considered one of the lighter sins, as laziness isn't immediately harmful the same way other sins are. However, sometimes inaction can be just as harmful as actively hurting people, especially if a person has a responsibility to ensure someone else's safety.

One way to make lazy characters more detestable is to have their laziness affect the people they are supposed to be protecting/providing for. This trope can manifest itself in a number of ways:

1. Parents who are too lazy to take care of their children will sometimes endanger their children's lives due to their irresponsibility; whether it involves leaving them in a hot car for hours at a time, leaving young children at home by themselves, abandoning them to fend for themselves, not taking them to the hospital or feeding them properly, not cleaning the house, or any other form of negligence. Some parents are so lazy when it comes to taking care of their kids, they can end up abusing or killing their children by sheer laziness.
2. Jobs that involve sanitation and safety (e.g. health inspectors, safety inspectors, garbage collectors) are important because without them, buildings would not be held to safety standards, food poisoning would be widespread, trash would fill the streets, etc. Naturally, safety and sanitation workers who neglect their duty could indirectly harm or even kill people by not properly inspecting buildings, taking bribes from unsanitary restaurants, improperly disposing of garbage, etc. Instances of this can result in No OSHA Compliance.
3. Healthcare professions involve caring for people's health, so naturally being negligent in any way can seriously endanger people's lives.
4. People in positions of authority (e.g. police officers, politicians, firefighters) have a responsibility to use their power for their citizens' safety, so neglecting said responsibility in favor of exploiting the privileges can inevitably lead to the people they are responsible for taking care of being harmed.
5. A company that's responsible for producing products might end up hurting or killing people with said products due to lack of safety testing.

Differs from Bystander Syndrome, which involves a stranger sitting back while someone else is endangered. Lethal Negligence involves someone being hurt because someone neglected their official responsibilities.

Super-Trope to Forgot to Feed the Monster. Compare Lethally Stupid and Lethal Klutz. If the negligent person is an adult, it is also a case of Adults Are Useless, or Police Are Useless if the person is a police officer. A Surveillance Station Slacker can potentially be responsible for this. Can overlap with an Accidental Child-Killer Backstory if the death was caused by negligence. Compare/Contrast Murder by Inaction, where a character deliberately allows someone to die by not saving them.

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: In "Let You Down", Sasha Yakovleva, the previous netrunner on Maine's crew, learns during a netrun on Biotechnica to steal some valuable data that the corp had deliberately withheld information about a prescription painkiller called Securicine which had led to her mother's death by neurodegeneration. Biotechnica had known all along about the deadly side effects, but refused to fix them or disclose them to the public, resulting in Sasha deciding to give her life to expose their coverup to the press.
• Excel♡Saga: Excel's first day on the job guiding traffic at a construction site results in multiple people being killed because her hyperactive lack of focus caused a catastrophe. A horrified Excel tries to deny any wrongdoing, but a caption on the screen points out that she committed "technical manslaughter by professional negligence".
• Hell Girl: "Silent Cries" has Yoshiyuki Honjou, a neglectful veterinarian who's responsible for the deaths of many pets, including Junko Kanno's pet dog Candy. When Junko finds out the truth, her attempts to gain evidence fail as Yoshiyuki gloats that he has the connections to get away with it. When Junko pulls the string and has him sentenced to Hell, the Hell Correspondence gives him a taste of his own medicine by crashing his car, breaking his leg, taking him to an illusory hospital, and ignoring his pleas for treatment just like how he ignored the animals he was supposed to take care of.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! (first anime series): One Villain of the Week is Dr. Goyu, who cares more about playing golf than caring for his patients, to the point that fifteen people die under his "care". Fortunately, Yugi manages to trick him into confessing his crimes, and he is fired.

Comic Books

• In Amazing Fantasy #15, after Peter Parker gains superpowers from a radioactive spider bite, he uses these newfound abilities to earn money through wrestling and television. However, the fame goes to his head, and in his vanity, Peter doesn't bother to stop a robber fleeing the studio. Consequently, the robber escapes and in a later burglary he kills Peter's kindly Uncle Ben. Peter is devastated to learn that a good man has been murdered as a result of his inaction, and pledges from now on to use his powers for the betterment of his city.
  And a lean, silent figure slowly fades into the gathering darkness, aware at last that in this world, with great power, there must also come — great responsibility!

Films — Animated

• The Lion King (1994): When Scar takes over the Pride Lands, he ends up turning it from a lush wilderness teeming with life to a barren wasteland with barely any food, because while Scar desired the power and perks that came with being king, he was too lazy to perform the actual responsibilities that came with it.

Films — Live-Action

• Alien³: "Dr." Clemens was stripped off his medical license because he was called in to administer aid after a large industrial accident but caused several more deaths because he prescribed the wrong doses of painkillers while he was high on morphine. Fiorina is the only company planet that will still accept him since Weyland-Yutani isn't interested in giving the remaining prisoners there anything more than the absolute minimum of medical care.

Live-Action TV

• The Brittas Empire: Julie is a Lazy Bum of a secretary, which has dangerous consequences in "Mr. Brittas Falls in Love" when she fails to properly keep track of Tim wanting shark steaks ordered and Brittas wanting a dolphin ordered in for Dolphin Day. The result is a shark placed in the pool of the centre, a young girl feared to have been eaten by it, and a lot of people intending to sue the centre after the fact.
• This trope often occurs in Disasters at Sea, with examples like the Marine Electric and Andrew J. Barberi, which are noted in further detail under "Real Life".
• In the Law & Order episode "Profiteer", the Victim of the Week is an executive at a body-armor company that sent a shipment of defective body armor to soldiers in Iraq. After securing a confession from the shooter, the DA's office decides to go after the company for negligent homicide in the death of the shooter's friend, who got stuck with one of the defective vests.
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has a good portion of their episodes devoted to this type of crime. Special mentions include:
  • "Abuse", which involves a celebrity couple who emotionally neglect their children. SVU becomes involved when the older child is killed after running into traffic, after the parents lost track of him at his own birthday party. The rest of the episode revolves around the younger daughter, who engages in self-harm to get their attention. The episode ends without resolving this issue or the neglect, leaving lingering concern that the daughter will one day go too far in her efforts to get the attention she craves.
  • "Risk", which involves smuggled cocaine in baby formula. A couple posing as a loving family with an infant are trafficking it from south of the border, and when their housekeeper takes the wrong can out of desperation, her child dies from the tainted milk.
  • "Manic", which ends with a pharmaceutical company being sued for sending unregulated samples through the mail that induced psychosis in a teenager who later brought a gun to school and killed two classmates.
  • "Retro", in which a case about a baby with untreated AIDS uncovers a quack doctor who is an AIDS denialist; he is put on trial after it's uncovered that his influence led to the death of another child, whose mother did not get her tested or treated.
  • "Lead", which is similar to "Manic" in which a toy company is sued over using illegal leaded paint on their toys. A young man who killed a local doctor accused of molesting his patients had acquired a lead-exposure developmental disability after playing with and mouthing the toys as a child.
  • "Institutional Fail", in which a child dies despite being under the purview of Child and Family Services, who were found to be faking records of visits to keep up with their overwhelming caseload.
• Odd Squad:
  • In "Robert Plant", a frustrated Olive decides to give up on reading Obfusco's thick instruction book on how to take care of his titular plant. She decides to water it the same way one would water any plant, by simply pouring the rest of the cup filled with water onto it. This causes the plant to begin growing out of control and snake around Headquarters, and eventually, trap Olive for a few moments before she can get to the antidote.
  • Averted with Owen, Precinct 13579's resident Lazy Bum whose amount of breaks far exceeds the number of days he's worked. Lazy he may be, but he is actually very dedicated to his job as the head of the Security department, and will often take action to stop villains and rogue odd creatures when the situation calls for it.
• One Monster of the Week in Power Rangers Dino Charge has the power to make people lazy, which she manages to use on all but one of the Rangers, making them too lazy to fight. She was originally sealed inside a cave by Koda's father, as her powers made his tribe too lazy to hunt, only for Koda to accidentally free it.
• Red Dwarf: The disaster that wiped out all but one of the crew was caused by Rimmer improperly fixing the ship's drive plate, causing a lethal radiation leak. In "Justice", this act is referred to as "willful negligence" on Rimmer's part.

Video Games

• In Hitman: Blood Money, Joseph "Swing King" Clarence is described as having caused the death of 36 people in the collapse of a Ferris Wheel in his popular Southland Amusement Park by saving on maintenance. Even though he escaped any legal consequence, he's the first target 47 will have to kill in the game.
• In the Reincarnation (2008) game Loving Every Evil Triumph, the nameless Reincarny that Vile, the demon protagonist of the series, has to deal with has gotten so engrossed in his gaming that he's neglected to feed his cat Meowxis, causing him to starve to death. Needless to say, this is what prompts Vile to send him back to Hell.
• Subverse: When the Imperium scientists had first discovered that the tectonically unstable planet of Vannera was about to blow itself to pieces, the then-Empress Kasidora ignored their report instead of ordering an evacuation of the native sentient species, condemning the latter to extinction.

Web Animation

• Etra chan saw it!:
  • Akamatsu is a Lazy Husband who is on thin ice with his wife Yuzuriha for cheating on her on top of his neglect of household chores and care for his son Kuroki. One day, when Akamatsu is out with Kuroki, he leaves him roaming in the streets in order to go drinking and cheating with a hostess. Yuzuriha and her parents are naturally horrified that Kuroki was lost, and angered at Akamatsu for abandoning him. Worse, Akamatsu tries to "justify" himself by claiming that it was fine since Japan is a safe country and that the woman he was cheating with was at fault for making him cheat. Naturally, neither Yuzuriha nor her parents buy his excuses, causing him to get divorced and disowned.
  • Akane was an extremely neglectful mother who would take advantage of her husband's long work hours to party with men all day, leaving her own children alone. In addition, she was too lazy to clean the house, meaning her children lived in filth, and she would sometimes lock her own children out of the house, even during winter, when she had a man over. One day, she abandoned her kids, who were adopted by their much kinder uncle and wife. Years later, after her kids have grown up, she decides to come see them again... because she needs money. Her kids tell her off and abandon her as payback.
• Monirobo: Mitsuya left his wife Masumi and son Tomoya to be with Keiko, his friend's wife. Two years later, after Mitsuya and Keiko have a baby, they leave it in a tote bag in front of Masumi's house. To make matters worse, when Masumi takes the baby to a doctor, she discovers that it was extremely malnourished because Mitsuya and Keiko were unemployed bums who not only tried to get Masumi to take care of their child but also expected her to pay off the debt Mitsuya racked up. Fortunately, they receive a Humiliation Conga in the form of being imprisoned for child neglect, being forced to work off their debt, and being beaten by Masumi's father (an ex-boxer), while the baby is Happily Adopted.
• Trouble Busters: Rose is a neglectful mother who tries to threaten Helen into watching her daughter for her, which Helen refuses every time. In order to try and force Helen to make her watch her daughter while she can goes overseas to have an affair, she lies to her husband, Andrew, that she gave the baby to Helen breaks Helen's car window, tosses the baby inside the car, in the middle of the summer, knowing that if she were overseas, Helen would have no choice but to watch her baby for her. Unfortunately, Helen and her husband Alan are also overseas, meaning that the baby has been trapped in a hot car for five days. When Rose learns this she insists that Helen and Alan go back and rescue the baby so she can enjoy her vacation, and hangs up. Fortunately, Helen calls her mom, who takes the baby to the hospital before any permanent damage happens and Rose is is punished by being locked in a car for an entire month by Andrew.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick: Roy's little brother, Eric, was killed in an accident when their father carried out a reckless magical experiment and brushed off Roy's warnings that it was too dangerous.

Web Originals

• Mystery Flesh Pit National Park: Hubris and negligence on the part of Anodyne culminates in the "2007 incident" and over 750 casualties. The administration chooses to keep the park open for an extra four hours unexpectedly, at the same time as a mining crew in another part of the pit is overworking to meet a strict quota. All this extra power use causes the filtration system that keeps rainwater out of the Superorganism's throat to short out, causing it to cough. Worse yet, they installed a failsafe for this... but didn't properly maintain it, meaning it was rusty and broke, causing the internal structures to collapse into the creature's stomach under the force of it coughing. Anodyne attempted to sedate the creature, but the drugs just made it vomit. Overall, the government rules Anodyne entirely culpable for the disaster and they're soon out of business.

Western Animation

• Beavis and Butt-Head: In "Drones", the drone soldier leaves his station so he can enjoy cake and ice cream with the rest of the crew but doesn't even bother to have it locked to keep out trespassers. Accordingly, Beavis and Butt-Head manage to break in and gain access to the drones, creating widespread havoc. He doesn't return to the station until after the duo had already left; he gets arrested at the scene.
• DuckTales (2017): Mark Beaks, being very Ambitious, but Lazy, ends up endangering the lives of others and himself as a result of his negligence in fixing and double-checking the inventions he steals.
  • In "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y System", he steals the blueprints for a driving robot that Gyro was working on and builds it as is despite the fact that Fenton, who uploaded the blueprints on the internet to fix it, explicitly told him about the design flaw that made the robot turn evil. Predictably, when Beaks insults the robot, while it is driving, it almost kills him, and the other passengers.
  • In "Who Is Gizmoduck!?", when Beaks steals the Gizmoduck suit and puts it on, despite not knowing how to use it, which almost gets him and other people killed when he messes with the suit's controls.
• Family Guy:
  • In "Death Has a Shadow", Peter is fired from the toy factory he works at when his sleeping on the job allows several dangerous products to make it to shipping and endanger customers.
  • Played for Laughs in "PTV". One Cutaway Gag shows Peter babysitting the neighbor's young child, leaving him unattended in an overfilled bathtub surrounded by plugged-in appliances, prescription medications, and a bottle of drain cleaner, then turning off the bathroom lights.
• The Fairly OddParents!: "That's Life!" reveals that whenever Timmy goes to summer camp, his parents forget to feed whatever pet he has at the time, resulting in them all dying. His parents proceed to bury them and tell Timmy that they simply ran away.
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series: In "Lax", the titular experiment's main function is to invoke this trope: he shoots beams that make people lazy and completely apathetic to everything, mostly their work, which would make civilizations collapse as a result (it doesn't work on Gretchen because she finds her work relaxing).
• The Littles: In "The Little Babysitters", Henry agrees to take a babysitting job, but then is invited to go play football in a field nearby with some of his friends. He decides to leave the infant in the care of his friends, the titular Littles. Grandpa Little tries to warn him that this is a very bad idea and that he needs to take responsibility. A fire starts in the house due to the baby pulling on an electrical cord to a game, and the child is only prevented from receiving serious harm by the quick thinking of the Little family.
• Rugrats: The parents of the titular characters always leave their infant children unattended — whether it be in the shopping mall, a baseball stadium, or an ice rink — putting them in mortal danger in the process. It's only due to pure luck that the Rugrats themselves end up unscathed. It's also a wonder social services have never been involved.
• The Simpsons: Listing all the times Homer's laziness has endangered his family, not to mention all of Springfield (being safety inspector of the nuclear plant and all), would fill up this whole page and then some. Perhaps the most egregious example is "King-Size Homer", in which he willingly makes himself morbidly obese so he can qualify for disability and work at home — all so he could avoid morning calisthenics at the plant. Naturally, he slacks off and neglects to vent pent-up gas from the nuclear core, which would have led to a catastrophic explosion had he not gone to the plant to shut it off manually, which he never gets to do before falling into the tank just as it ruptures, his fatter-than-usual body blocking the deadly gas.

Real Life

• In 1983, the bulk carrier Marine Electric sank off the coast of Virginia, with the loss of all but three of her 34 crew. In the subsequent investigation, it was found that the ship's penny-pinching owners had allowed the ship to decay to unseaworthy condition. Hatch covers had deteriorated past the point they should have been replaced, and were repaired using second-rate materials that were only meant to be used as stopgaps. It got to the point where gaping holes in the deck were simply circled so that no one tripped over them. But there was another layer of this trope in play, as the reason this was allowed to happen was because the agencies responsible for inspecting the Marine Electric rushed their inspections.
• When the Staten Island Ferry Andrew J. Barberi collided with a maintenance pier in 2003, killing eleven people, it was found that there were multiple layers of this trope in play.
  • To begin with, Assistant Captain Richard J. Smith was under medication for back pain that had side effects including drowsiness, blurred vision, and seizures. Despite having prescribed him these medications, Smith's doctor signed off on Coast Guard certification that he was fit for duty. As a result, Smith blacked out while at the controls, causing the crash.
  • Additionally, the policy on the Staten Island Ferry was to have both the Captain and Assistant Captain in the same pilothouse during docking, so the Barberi's Captain, Micheal J. Gansas, should have been in a position to intervene when Smith blacked out. However, it turned out that this policy was usually flouted by crews to save time on the turnaround in port. As a result, Captain Gansas was in the other pilothouse at the opposite end of the ship when the collision took place.

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