Hypothetical question to 984 and Xwing:
If a young child can’t be found negligent, should s/he be allowed to practice activities that may severely hurt someone in the event of an accident?
What, like riding bicycles?
Generally in these types of cases, a friend told me that, at least in Canada, boys will, in general, get off much easier than girls, and that dumb kids will get off easier than smart kids, despite being the same age (we’re talking like 10-12 year olds now). As long as the defendant has the mental wherewithal to foresee the consequences of his/her action, they can be prosecuted. If they don’t, then too bad for whoever got injured. Even if it was completely the kid’s fault.
The prosecution will never win with a 4-year old, though. Good luck with that.
There’s actually an exception to address that. If a child (older than four) performs an adult activity like driving a car, he’s judged under the more stringent adult standard of care, rather than the laxer child standard. Unlike the child standard, which factors in age, knowledge, experience and education, the adult standard just asks whether the “reasonable person” would’ve avoided doing the same act.
What’s an adult activity is based on the community in question. Guns are a funny example. Here in New York City or in Los Angeles, for example, shooting a gun is an adult activity, period. But in one Alabama case, a judge reasoned that 14-year-olds in the area went hunting so often that it shouldn’t be treated as an adult activity, so the defendant should be judged under the laxer child standard. Nevertheless, the judge upheld a jury decision finding him liable because “any 14-year-old with his hunting experience should have known better” than to fire a gun in such direction, at such time of day, given the nature of the particular movements he had seen. Different worlds.
If a person can’t be expected to be reasonable, then what?
Klez, yeah that’s what I’m obviously pointing at. I don’t think its appropriate to just say “lulz, its just riding a bike stfu”, because context matters. If you live in a crowded urban environment, the odds of an accident happening are much higher than in a shitty little suburb. If an urban environment is not designed to accomodate children/people riding bikes, as they often aren’t, then that’s a problem that needs to be considered. Accidents can and do happen, but everyone has the responsibility to mitigate risks. If someone is incapable of doing so, they pose a risk for others. In this case, elderly people, there is a clear case for a context where someone is at risk from someone else’s behavior.
I prefer to ask the question conceptually to simplify the idea I’m trying to convey. Obviously, the 4 year old can’t be expected to really understand anything beyond “running into people is bad” and again I’m not commenting on the fact the 4 year old is being sued. I’m simply talking about the bigger picture of how the system is set up to deal with risk.
Depends what you mean by that.
The reasonable person has ordinary mental capacities (as determined by the jury), but the same physical limitations as the defendant. E.g., a blind man who causes an accident by crossing the street is measured against the reasonable blind person. On the other hand, a morbidly arachnophobic woman who sees a spider and reacts by swerving her car into a pedestrian is treated just like any reasonable person.
Here’s the tricky part: If someone has a physical ailment or condition that causes his mind not to function correctly, the reasonable person standard will take account of that too. Of course, now we know that every mental condition has a physical cause, so this distinction is specious. As a result, this exception is limited to cases where doctors can point to specific defects in or foreign influences on a person’s brain that render him totally abnormal. Having a fever that caused hallucinations would definitely qualify. Voluntary drunkenness does not qualify, because the negligence lies in getting that drunk to begin with. Having an IQ of 70 is not enough, but an IQ of 30 might be. Depression is not enough, but severe schizophrenia might be. (On a side note, none of this involves “the insanity defense,” which is for criminal cases).
If you’re wondering how the reasonable person would be expected to act in a situation that would render anyone unreasonable, the answer is–just like that. “Reasonable” means “ordinary” more than it does “perfectly rational at all times.” If a bomb is going to go off in one minute and in the scramble out of a building, one person carelessly knocks down another, he would very likely be deemed reasonable given the circumstances.
Just remember this, non-law people. The Reasonably Prudent Man is a fucking tool. He never does anything fun and is always in bed by 9 PM after having a glass of warm milk.
I think the only question left now is: Was the milk left out, or was it heated up?
What was the girl doing riding a bike in the kitchen?
Heated up. The Reasonably Prudent Man follows proper food storage guidelines.
What a fucking tool, I am eating quiche that’s been left out unrefrigerated for, like, a day.
I ate QFC once.