Reasonable person

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The reasonable person standard is often used legal term that originated in the development of the common law. The "reasonable person" is a legal fiction which represents a reasoned outlook on a legal question. The perspective of the reasonable man is intentionally distinct from that of an "average" person; contrary to popular misconception, the reasonable man is not necessarily average. The question of how a reasonable person might act, or what judgments they might make under the circumstances performs a critical role in legal reasoning in areas such as negligence, contract law, and criminal law. For example, the crime of sexual harassment is deemed to have occurred in some legal jurisdictions when the conduct is unwelcome and when a reasonable person would have considered such conduct sexual.

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[edit] History and rationale behind the standard

The rationale for the reasonable person standard is that the law will benefit the general public when it serves its reasonable members, and thus a reasonable application of the law is sought, compatible with planning, working, or getting along with others. The reasonable person is not necessarily the "average person"; it is not a "democratic" measure. To predict the appropriate sense of responsibility and other standards of the reasonable person, "what is reasonable" has to be the primary question. (What the "average person" thinks or might do is irrelevant to a case concerning specialized technical knowledge, such as advanced mathematics.) But the reasonable person is appropriately informed, capable, aware of the law, and fair-minded. Such a person might do something extraordinary in certain circumstances, but whatever that person does or thinks is always "reasonable."

One of the earliest cases contributing to the development of the modern reasonable person standard was the 1837 English case Vaughan v. Menlove. In that case, the court rejected an argument by the defendant's lawyers that the defendant should be found negligent only if he failed to act "bona fide to the best of his judgment; if he had, he ought not to be responsible for the misfortune of not possessing the highest order of intelligence." The court, reasoning that such standard would be too subjective, ruled that the better test was whether the defendant had exhibited "a regard to caution such as a man of ordinary prudence would observe."

US jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes explained the reasonable person standard as resulting from the fact that for life in organized society, "a certain average of conduct, a sacrifice of individual peculiarities going beyond a certain point, is necessary to the general welfare." Echoing the court's reasoning in Vaughn v. Menlove, Holmes declared that the law "does not attempt to see men [sic] as God sees them."[1]

[edit] Children and the reasonable person

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Children are not usually held to a reasonable person standard. Children under the age of 6 or 7, in many states, are exempt as they are thought to be unable to understand risk involved in their actions and thus should not be held responsible to make reasonable choices. Children of ages 7 to 17 are usually held to a reasonable person standard that takes their age into account. One of the exceptions to this is when a child is involved in an adult activity such as driving a motor boat(Dellwo v. Pearson, 107 N.W.2d 859).

[edit] Professional negligence: the reasonable doctor

In cases where professional opinions may be necessary the doctrine of the reasonable professional has developed. Thus if a doctor misdiagnoses a patient, the question is not, "Was that diagnosis wrong?" but rather, "Would a professional acting under the same circumstances, with the knowledge available to the field at the time of the diagnosis, have concluded that the given diagnosis was reasonable?" Questions about the knowledge of a professional in a particular discipline in a particular environment are relevant here, "Is the reasonable professional an expert or a general practitioner in this area?" Of course as with any legal concept these lines of reasoning may be applied differently in differing jurisdictions.

[edit] Reasonable bystander

See also Offer and acceptance

A related notion, used in common law contract law, is that of a reasonable bystander or reasonable third party. It is also known as the objective theory of contract formation and it is distinguished from the subjective theory of contract formation that is accepted in most civil law jurisdictions. Sometimes, particularly in the context of verbal contracts, the existence of a contract is disputed because one party declares that there was no intention to be legally bound. Since it would be impractical for the court to try to determine the truth of this statement, it uses the following test instead: if the outward conduct of the parties would have indicated to a reasonable bystander a serious intention to enter into an agreement, then the contract is deemed legally binding. Another circumstance where the reasonable bystander is used occurs when one party has inadvertently misstated the terms of the contract, and the other party sues to enforce those terms: if it would have been clear to a reasonable bystander that a mistake had been made, then the contract is voidable by the party who made the error; otherwise, the contract is binding.


[edit] Satire

The legal humorist A. P. Herbert considered the concept of the Reasonable Man at length in the celebrated fictional case of Fardell v Potts.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Holmes, The Common Law. 107-109 (1881)