The Reasonable Person Standard To determine whether a defendant breached his duty of care in a negligence case, a court will compare the defendant’s conduct to the conduct that we would expect from a ‘reasonable person.’ You might hear the reasonable person called … In deciding whether or not a particular clause is reasonable, the courts have regard to a range of factors. Reasonable person standard This standard means how an objective, careful, and conscientious person would have reacted in the same circumstances. : a fictional person with an ordinary degree of reason, prudence, care, foresight, or intelligence whose conduct, conclusion, or expectation in relation to a particular circumstance or fact is used as an objective standard by which to measure or determine something (as the existence of negligence) we have generally held that a reasonable person would not believe that he or she has been seized when an officer merely … Was it an accident? Risky and unfortunate situations arise everywhere in life - and of course the workplace is no exception. In law, the reasonable person is not an average person or a typical person but a composite of the community's judgment as to how the typical community member should behave in situations that might pose a threat of harm to the public. The hypothetical reasonable person behaves in a way that is legally appropriate. Certainly, most torts (the kinds of acts or omissions that cause damage) are caused by pure accidents or mistakes. The reasonable person test is an objective standard. Unfortunately, the haystack spontaneously combusted and destroyed some of the plaintiff’s property.The court reje… The ‘reasonable person’ test is one of those legal quirks that form an enduring part of the common law, despite being very hard to actually define. Share !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); The reasonable person test is an objective standard. [2], Dangerous Operation of a Motor Vehicle (Offence), Exclusion of Evidence Under Section 24(2) of the Charter, Aggravating and Mitigating Factors#Prohibited Factors, http://criminalnotebook.ca/index.php?title=Reasonable_Person_Test&oldid=57233, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, "reasonable, informed, practical and realistic" who "consider the matter in some detail", the person is not a "very sensitive or scrupulous" person, but is "right-minded", dispassionate and fully apprised of the case. A phrase frequently used in tort and Criminal Law to denote a hypothetical person in society who exercises average care, skill, and judgment in conduct and who serves as a comparative standard for determining liability. Civil or criminal cases involving negligenceuse the reasonable person standard as the basis for comparison when deciding issues of liability. In Australian law, the reasonable person has been characterised as "the man on the Bondi tram" - an average member of society, who has various generalised attributes including risk aversion, sound judgment and a sense of self-preservation, which prevents them from walking blindly into danger. Whilst the term 'reasonable person' may to some individuals mean an ordinary person, possessed of such powers of self control as everyone is entitled to expect that their fellow citizens will exercise in society, others may have a differing viewpoint. Re Sortirios Pandos and Commonwealth of Australia, ——The position, rank, level of authority/influence of the alleged bully in relation to the other person. The hypothetical reasonable person behaves in a way that is legally appropriate. Whilst individuals may have these differiing viewpoints, it might be worthwhile considering the following circumstances when identifying this 'reasonable person': Time to overhaul employee experience Remote works biggest HR challenges and more, Injured workers unfair dismissal claim rejected, Genuine redundancy challenges set to rise, Redundancy exception challenge Government issues mental health guides and more, Leading in uncertainty is top learning priority for 2021, "Difficult" employee narrowly wins unfair dismissal claim, HR criticised for passive role in performance dismissal, Remote onboarding: A 'plan B' is good but 'plan C' is even better, HR manager's "cowboy behaviour" nixes genuine redundancy defence, Formal warning too harsh for second job 'deception', © 2020   Created by Jo Knox. And the possibilities for damage, loss and distress to workers, contractors, visitors and clients are so extensive that some days, business owners can question their decision to open the doors! The test of breach of duty is generally objective, however, there may be slight variations to this. For example, the response of a 'reasonable person' in a Chief Surgeon's position to any given situation is likely to differ substantially to that of an Assistant in Nursing. Such a person doesn’t get hyper-emotional and does the right thing at the right time all the time. Yet the courts never endowed our fictitious reasonable person with 20/20 hindsight. Subjective intent is immaterial in asserting liability.q Those who do not meet this standard -- that is, they do not behave at least as a reasonable person would -- are considered negligent and may be held liable for damages caused by their actions. The Reasonable Person Test Explained. See Canterbury v Spence, Contributory negligence, Negligence. The circumstances that what is the reasonable person test at the right time all the time the defendant acted same circumstances degree of discretion the! 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