Also known as: ordinary care · reasonable care · standard of care
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A standard of conduct requiring a person to act with the degree of care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in the same or similar circumstances.
Omar Olson left a loaded rifle unattended on a busy campsite trail after a hunting trip. A child picked it up and the weapon discharged, killing a bystander. The prosecution charged involuntary manslaughter, arguing that Omar's failure to secure the firearm created a high risk of death and constituted a gross deviation from ordinary care under the circumstances.
Olive Okafor stored flammable chemicals next to an open flame in her workshop without checking the labels. The resulting fire injured a visitor. The court measured her conduct against the standard of ordinary care under the circumstances and found that a reasonable person in her position would have recognized the substantial and unjustifiable risk.
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Orchard Farms leased a retail space to Opal Okoro and promised in the lease to maintain the heating system. After the system failed and caused a pipe to burst, flooding injured a customer. The court held that the landlord failed to exercise ordinary care under the circumstances by not repairing the known defect.
Onyx Pharmaceuticals hired an independent contractor to repair its loading dock. After the work, a visitor tripped on an unrepaired hazard. The company was liable because it failed to exercise ordinary care under the circumstances to inspect the dock once the contractor finished.
Olympus Banking rejected a shipment of servers but kept them in its warehouse for two weeks without notifying the seller. The servers were damaged by humidity. The court found that the bank failed to hold the goods with ordinary care under the circumstances as required after rejection.
Orlando Okafor, trustee of a family trust, invested trust funds in speculative real estate without reviewing market data or the trust's distribution needs. The investments lost value. The beneficiaries claimed he breached his duty to exercise ordinary care under the circumstances when administering the trust.
The standard is not a rigid checklist but adjusts to the specific facts known to the actor, the nature of the conduct, and the risks involved. A reasonable person in the actor's situation supplies the benchmark.
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Yes. A party that owes a duty of reasonable care remains responsible for exercising ordinary care under the circumstances to verify that the completed work leaves the premises or chattels in a safe condition.
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Criminal negligence requires a gross deviation from the standard that creates a high risk of death or serious bodily harm. Ordinary care is the baseline. The gross deviation elevates the conduct to involuntary manslaughter at common law.
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The trustee must administer the trust as a prudent person would, taking into account the trust's purposes, terms, and distributional requirements while exercising reasonable care, skill, and caution.
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The buyer must hold the goods with reasonable care at the seller's disposition for a sufficient time to allow removal. Failure to protect the goods from foreseeable harm during that period violates the duty.
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…concluded that the States could constitutionally allow private individuals to recover damages for defamation on the basis of any standard of care except liability without fault. MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL dissented in Rosenbloom in an opinion joined by MR. JUSTICE STEWART. Id., at 78 . He thought that the plurality's "public or general…