Diligence

Vigilant activity; attentiveness; or care, of which there are infinite shades, from the slightest momentary thought to the most vigilant anxiety. Attentive and persistent in doing a thing; steadily applied; active; sedulous; laborious; unremitting; untiring. The attention and care required of a person in a given situation; the opposite of Negligence.

There may be a high degree of diligence, a common degree of diligence, and a slight degree of diligence, with their corresponding degrees of negligence. Common or ordinary diligence is that degree of diligence which persons generally exercise in respect to their own concerns; high or great diligence is, of course, extraordinary diligence, or that which very prudent persons take of their own concerns; and low or slight diligence is that which persons of less than common prudence, or indeed of any prudence at all, take of their own concerns.

Special diligence is the skill that a good businessperson exercises in his or her specialty. It is more highly regarded than ordinary diligence or the diligence of a nonspecialist in a given set of circumstances.

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diligence n. reasonable care or attention to a matter, which is good enough to avoid a claim of negligence, or is a fair attempt (as in due diligence in a process server's attempt to locate someone).

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DILIGENCE, contracts. The doing things in proper time.
     2. It may be divided into three degrees, namely: ordinary diligence, extraordinary diligence, and slight diligence. It is the reverse of negligence. (q.v.) Under that article is shown what degree of negligence, or want of diligence, will make a party to a contract responsible to the other. Vide Story, Bailm. Index h.t.; Ayl. Pand. 113 1 Miles, Rep. 40.

DILIGENCE. In Scotland, there are certain forms of law, whereby a creditor endeavors to make good his payment, either by affecting the person of his debtor, or by securing the subjects belonging to him from alienation, or by carrying the property of these subjects to himself. They are either real or personal.
     2. Real diligence is that which is proper to heritable or real rights,. and of this kind there are two sorts: 1. Inhibitions. 2. Adjudication, which the law has substituted in the place of apprising.
     3. Personal diligence is that by which the person of the debtor may be secured, or his personal estate affected. Ersk. Pr. L. Scotl. B. 2, t. 11, s. 1.