REASONABLE PERSON
reasonable person. 1. A hypothetical person used as a legal standard, esp. to determine
whether someone acted with negligence; specif., a person who exercises the degree of attention,
knowledge, intelligence, and judgment that society requires of its members for the protection of
their own and of others’ interests. • The reasonable person acts sensibly, does things without
serious delay, and takes proper but not excessive precautions. — Also termed reasonable man;
prudent person; ordinarily prudent person; reasonably prudent person; highly prudent person. See
reasonable care under CARE. [Cases: Insurance 1818; Negligence 233. C.J.S. Negligence §§
34, 118–121, 125–127, 130–131, 133.]
“The reasonable man connotes a person whose notions and standards of behaviour and
responsibility correspond with those generally obtained among ordinary people in our society at
the present time, who seldom allows his emotions to overbear his reason and whose habits are
moderate and whose disposition is equable. He is not necessarily the same as the average man — a
term which implies an amalgamation of counter-balancing extremes.” R.F.V. Heuston, Salmond on
the Law of Torts 56 (17th ed. 1977).
2.Archaic. A human being.“In the antique phraseology which has been repeated since the
time of Lord Coke the actus reus of murder (and therefore of any criminal homicide) was declared
to be unlawfully killing a reasonable person who is in being and under the King’s peace, the death
following within a year and a day. In this sentence the word ‘reasonable’ does not mean ‘sane’, but
‘human’. In criminal law, a lunatic is a persona for all purposes of protection, even when not so
treated for the assessment of liability.” J.W. Cecil Turner, Kenny’s Outlines of Criminal Law 102
(16th ed. 1952). [Blacks Law 8th]