Also known as: standards of conduct
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A measure of expected behavior imposed by law. In negligence the benchmark is the conduct of a reasonable person under like circumstances, adjusted for a child or for physical disability. In criminal law the benchmark is the conduct a law-abiding person would observe when assessing recklessness.
Southland Foods faces separate suits from two groups of employees over the same bonus policy. One court orders payment while another denies it. The conflicting rulings would force the company to follow incompatible directives on the same conduct. Class certification is therefore appropriate to avoid that result.
Stephen Shaw speeds through a school zone while texting. He sees children crossing yet continues without slowing. The risk of striking a child is both substantial and obvious. His conscious disregard of that risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard a law-abiding driver would follow.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Sarah Sullivan leaves a ladder unattended on a busy sidewalk. A passerby trips and falls. The question is whether a reasonable person in her position would have secured the ladder or posted a warning. The jury measures her conduct against that objective benchmark.
Twelve-year-old Sierra Santos rides her bicycle on a crowded boardwalk and collides with a vendor cart. The cart tips and injures a customer. Her conduct is judged by what a reasonable twelve-year-old of like intelligence and experience would have done in the same setting.
Sylvia Santos, who has limited grip strength from arthritis, attempts to carry a heavy tray down stairs. The tray slips and spills hot liquid on a guest. Her conduct is measured by what a reasonable person with the same physical limitation would have done under identical circumstances.
Skyline Construction ignores a city ordinance requiring guardrails on elevated platforms. A worker falls and is injured. The ordinance supplies the standard of conduct because its purpose is to protect workers from exactly that hazard. Violation of the ordinance therefore constitutes negligence.
The standard becomes that of a reasonable person of like age, intelligence, and experience under like circumstances rather than an adult reasonable-person measure.
A court may adopt the requirements of a legislative enactment or administrative regulation as the standard when the enactment is designed to protect the class of persons and the interest invaded and to guard against the kind of harm that occurred.
Yes. When a plaintiff violates a safety statute or regulation designed for the plaintiff's own protection, the violation can constitute contributory negligence if it is unexcused and legally contributes to the harm.
The trial judge or jury applies the ordinary reasonable-person standard to the facts, instructing the jury on reasonable care and letting the jury decide whether the conduct met that standard under the circumstances.
…arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable, or accomplishes no justifiable purpose, or is offensive to our own notions of "civilized standards of conduct."[^maj-16] Such an appraisal of the wisdom of legislation is an attribute of the power to make laws, not of the power to interpret them. The use by federal courts of such a formula or…