Legal liability for theft of credit card information left in my care with no contract?
<p>Suppose your neighbor asks you to babysit their cat.</p>

<ul>
<li>The neighbor has to run an errand so they leave it with me.</li>
<li>Someone else breaks into my house and steals the cat, along with its diamond necklace.</li>
<li>Do they have any chance of successfully suing in court for negligence leading to a loss?</li>
</ul>

<p>The real case I'm thinking of is</p>

<ul>
<li>VISA issues a credit card to John.</li>
<li>John sends me a copy of their VISA bill in order to get some financial advice.</li>
<li>The bill happens to contain their credit card number although I did not go out of my way to ask for it.</li>
<li>Before I can shred the paper, someone breaks into my house and steals it. In fact, my house contained millions of people's statements and they steal them all.</li>
<li>VISA sues me for negligence leading to damages because the theft will likely lead to fraud which will cause them damage. They (correctly) point out that I did not take reasonable action to secure the paperwork.</li>
<li>There was no legal agreement between myself and John, nor between myself and VISA. I did not intentionally give out credit numbers. At the same time, I did not go out of my way to secure them either.</li>
<li>Damages may have occurred, but I never promised to secure the papers nor to accept liability in the case of their loss.</li>
</ul>

<p>Questions related to this scenario are</p>

<ul>
<li>Does VISA have a legal leg to stand on?</li>
<li>Is there a legal precedent in this (or equivalent) case?</li>
</ul>

<p>If we weren't talking about credit cards, I would have expected John to be ultimately liable but we all know that credit card companies do not hold card holders responsible for unintentional fraud.</p>

<h2>Possibly</h2>

<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligence" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Negligence</a> does not require a contract. It requires:</p>

<ol>
<li>Duty</li>
<li>Breach</li>
<li>Damage</li>
<li>Causation.</li>
</ol>

<p>3-4 are unarguable, Visa needs to prove 1 and 2. In the circumstances where John is relying on you in a professional status, 1 is certainly arguable. If you took no precautions, 2 would seem to be easily demonstrated.</p>

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