Introduction

In this chapter, I will argue at length that a failure to properly characterize the jury norm effect leads the Third Restatement account of negligence astray. Apparently due to the bias of legal centralism, the Third Restatement assumes, without little by way of argument or evidence, the dominant causal efficacy of the Hand Test interpretation of the reasonable person standard on the deliberations of juries, and hence on the outcomes in negligence suits.

Based on the empirical support and analysis presented in Chapter Ten, I will argue to the contrary that there is good reason to suppose that juries do not engage in Hand Test normative processing but instead draw from their diverse array of everyday norms and customs when providing concrete substance to the abstract reasonable person standard in order to come to a decision on the issue of negligence.