What standard governs the duty of care in negligence?

• A. The reasonable person standard
• B. The legal person test
• C. The extraordinary athlete standard
• D. The professional's specialized standard

Answer: (A)

The key idea is that in negligence, the duty of care is judged against what a reasonable person would do in the same situation. This creates an objective benchmark: would a prudent, ordinary person have acted the same way given the risks and facts at hand? That baseline governs most negligence cases, serving as the standard to decide whether conduct breached the duty of care.

There are variations in context. For example, children or people with disabilities are sometimes judged by standards tailored to their characteristics, reflecting that the expectation of reasonableness can change with circumstance. For professionals, the standard can shift to what a reasonably competent practitioner in that field would have done. But for ordinary negligence, the general, default standard is the reasonable person standard.