(a) No, this statement is not correct.  It is only conduct in breach of a legal duty of care that gives rise to liability for harm caused. There is no liability for acts when there is no duty imposed by the law, even if they cause damage and even if they are performed carelessly.

In Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562 Lord Macmillan said:

"....The law takes no cognisance of carelessness in the abstract. It concerns itself with carelessness only where there is a duty to take care and where failure in that duty has caused damage. In such circumstances carelessness assumes the legal quality of negligence and entails the consequences in law of negligence..."