of law. To maintain an action in negligence, the plaintiff must prove four essential elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages. Eklund, ¶ 32. Without duty, and a breach of that duty, no negligence can exist. See e.g. Jacobs v. Laurel Volunteer Fire Dept., 2001 MT 98, ¶ 13, 305 Mont. 225, ¶ 13, 26 P.3d 730, ¶ 13. Thus, we will consider Swift’s cross-appeal first. ¶14 I. Did the District Court err by partially denying Swift’s motion for summary judgment, and concluding that Swift owed Fisher a duty of care as a matter of law? ¶15 A. Duty ¶16 At the most basic level, we all share the common law duty to exercise the level of care that a reasonable and prudent person would under the same circumstances. See e.g. Runkle v. Burlington Northern, 188 Mont. 286, 299, 613 P.2d 982, 990 (1980) (<HOLDING>). We have long recognized that the common law
holding that a railroad had a duty to exercise this level of care even in the absence of statutorily imposed duties holding that a landlord may have a duty to exercise reasonable care for the safety of its tenants in common areas holding that the law imposes on every person who enters upon an active course of conduct the positive duty to exercise ordinary care to protect others from harm and calls a violation of that duty negligence  that a complete binding contract between the parties is not a prerequisite to a duty to use due care in ones actions     and that architects may be held liable for a breach of the duty of care and breach of contract that results in foreseeable injury economic or otherwise holding that a breach of duties that a fiduciary contractually assumes beyond those duties imposed by law is considered to arise out of contract holding that psychiatrist has duty to third parties to exercise due care in treatment and release of committed patients