The reasonable prudent person is the most important standard in tort law.
But who, exactly, is this person?
Is it you, me, him, him, or maybe her?
Stay to the end and learn more about how the law defines the reasonable prudent person.
Hello lawlings, this is Professor Beau Baez.
Today we examine Negligence, the most common tort in common law countries.
To establish that someone is negligent, the law generally uses the reasonably prudent
person standard of care.
First, I will provide you some background for the standard and then I will explain it using
real cases and examples.
Make sure to stay to the end for the bonus law fact, where you can learn about the time
when people not convicted of a crime were nonetheless killed for remaining silent.
Tort law is comprised of three types of torts: intentional, strict liability, and negligence.
The first element in a negligence action is duty, which requires the defendant to adhere
to a specific standard of care.
Though there are several standards that can apply to establish duty, the default and most
common standard is that of the reasonable prudent person.
The history behind this standard goes all the way back to 1850 and the landmark case Brown v. Kendall.
Prior to 1850, tort liability was established through the writ of trespass, which only required
some voluntary action by the defendant.
But the Massachusetts high court rejected the writ of trespass and created two torts:
one based on intent and another based on fault.
The fault-based tort is what we now call negligence.
In that case, Brown v. Kendall, one man was trying to separate two dogs, who were fighting.
So he picked up a large stick, and while lifting it over his head he quite accidently hit the
other man right behind him, causing that man severe harm.
The court held that the defendant was liable only if he failed to exercise ordinary care,
or what today we now call reasonable care.
The court then explained that ordinary care “means that kind and degree of care, which
prudent and cautious men would use, such as is required by the exigency of the case, and
such as is necessary to guard against probable danger.”
Since that time, courts have further explained what they mean by prudent and cautious men,
or again, what today we would call the reasonably prudent person.
First and foremost, the reasonable prudent person is a fictional person, completely hypothetical.
There is no person that always adheres to reasonable conduct in all that they do.
That’s impossible.
The standard is also objective, in the sense that we aren’t concerned with what the defendant
actually knew, but rather what they should have known.
The reasonable person is deemed to be an adult member of the community where the tort occurred,
with the average knowledge of a person from that community.
For example, a city person visiting the country will be deemed to know that you don’t walk
behind a horse because the horse might kick you.
In a case from one hundred years ago, a woman from Madrid, Spain was visiting Boston.
At the time, coal companies delivered coal to the front of homes, where holes were located
to move the coal down into the basements.
This Spanish woman had no idea the coal holes existed and fell into one.
The court found that the homeowner acted reasonably because the typical Bostonian, from that time,
was aware of the coal holes, and it was irrelevant that the Spanish woman was completely unaware of them.
Though the standard is objective, there are times when some subjective criteria are considered.
First, the law does consider physical disabilities, with one court observing that the law can’t
make a blind man see or a deaf man hear.
This alters the standard of care to that of a reasonably prudent person with the same disability.
In my case, if I'm in a car accident, I am required to act as a reasonably prudent
person who is blind in their right eye.
Though the law considers physical disabilities, it completely ignores a person’s mental
disabilities like schizophrenia or insanity.
In one case, an older man with Alzheimer’s kicked his nurse, breaking her arm.
The court explained that his lack of mental control was not a basis for relieving him
of liability.
Finally, courts will take into account someone’s superior skills in determining what is reasonable.
For example, suppose that a roofer negligently installs a new roof.
The roofer will be held to a higher standard of professional roofers and not to that of
a typical member of the community.
After all, if you or I, average members of society set the standard, then roofers would
never be found liable for acting unreasonably.
Now, for today’s bonus law fact.
Until the 18th century, common law countries required all indicted criminals to plead guilty
or not guilty.
But the courts had a problem when someone just remained silent and refused to plead.
This is because the courts viewed their jurisdiction as voluntary, and only those that made a plea
could be tried.
So pray tell, you might be wondering what happened to the silent defendant.
The courts had a process called Peine forte et dure, which is in Law French and translated
means forceful and hard punishment.
The goal behind this punishment was to get the defendant to plead so the trial could occur.
So here is what would happen to the silent defendant, or what was then called “standing mute.”
Out in the open where they could be seen by the public, they were strapped to the ground,
face up, naked except for a cloth to protect their private parts, and their arms and legs
extended in all four directions so that they could not move.
A heavy rock was then placed on their chest, with the hope that they would plead guilty
or not guilty.
More rocks were then placed on their chest until they plead or they died.
The most famous case of crushing involved the Roman Catholic Saint Margaret Clitherow,
who died within 15 minutes after 700 pounds, 318 kilograms, were placed on her.
In some cases it is reported that the crowds would take pity on the victims and would sit
on the rocks to hasten their deaths.
In addition to the cases from the United Kingdom, there is one reported case of pressing from
the American colonies.
You may be wondering, why wouldn't somebody just plea?
This is because these defendants were charged with crimes that would result in them losing
all their property if found guilty, and they were in fact guilty.
In Saint Margaret Clitherow’s case, she was in fact harboring Roman Catholic priests
in her home, which was treason at that time.
By choosing death by pressing, heirs would get an inheritance because the defendant was
never found guilty of the act they in fact committed.
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