The Reasonable Person Standard
A reasonable person is somebody who approaches all situations with a sufficient amount of caution before prudently taking action. This was established to provide courts with an objective criterion that can be applied when determining whether a defendant’s actions constitute negligence. In other words, a jury must decide what a reasonable person would have done under conditions similar to the defendants. After comparing the defendant’s conduct to that of a reasonable person, they may find that the defendant was negligent if their conduct failed to meet the reasonable person’s standard.
What Are The Legal Elements Of Negligence?
To prove negligence and prevail in court, a victim has the burden of demonstrating the following four elements:
- Duty of Care: The defendant must have had a legal obligation to avoid injuring the plaintiff. Based on the parties’ relationship, this duty of care is required for the defendant to act in a particular way to the victim.
- Breach of the Duty of Care: Violating the duty of care means that the defendant’s conduct failed to meet the above reasonable person standard.
- Causation: The plaintiff must show that the breach of care was the proximate cause of their injury. The victim must demonstrate that they would not have suffered injury if not for the defendant’s behavior. It is worth noting that someone can be negligent and not be held responsible for another’s damages if the negligence did not directly cause injury.
- Actual Damages: The victim must have sustained damages to recover compensation for an injury claim. Damages can include both economic and non-economic damages.
Examples Of Negligence
Some instances of negligence include:
- Elderly nursing residents develop painful bedsores after staff repeatedly neglected to wash them;
- A Pitbull biting a jogger because the owner was walking the dog off its leash;
- A young child drowning in a public pool because a lifeguard failed to watch over them responsibly;
- An elevator slammed closed on a visitor because the landlord neglected to repair it; and
- A distracted driver rear-ended another car at a red light.
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