Book contents
- The Reasonable Person
- Law in Context
- The Reasonable Person
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Cases
- Table of Legislation
- Introduction
- 1 The Reasonable Person in the Past
- 2 The Reasonable Person in Birmingham
- 3 The Reasonable Person in Clapham
- 4 The Reasonable Person in the Colonies
- 5 The Reasonable Person on the Battlefield
- 6 The Reasonable Person in the Future
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Reasonable Person in the Colonies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 May 2024
- The Reasonable Person
- Law in Context
- The Reasonable Person
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Table of Cases
- Table of Legislation
- Introduction
- 1 The Reasonable Person in the Past
- 2 The Reasonable Person in Birmingham
- 3 The Reasonable Person in Clapham
- 4 The Reasonable Person in the Colonies
- 5 The Reasonable Person on the Battlefield
- 6 The Reasonable Person in the Future
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter considers how and in what contexts the reasonable person standard was applied by the selected colonial courts of the British Empire. The key question is whether the reasonable person imported from England remained English in substance – whether it continued to resemble a man on the Clapham omnibus – or the courts tailored the standard to the specific circumstances before them. As the first section shows, there are many cases in which the reasonable person was equated with an Englishman. This suggests that the standard was static in nature. However, the second section of the chapter complicates this conclusion by introducing numerous cases and settings in which the standard was adapted to specific, local contexts – sometimes so successfully that local variants of it developed. Drawing together the first two sections, the final part considers the nexus between a standard’s resemblance to the people to whom it is applied and the authority of law.
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- The Reasonable PersonA Legal Biography, pp. 80 - 105Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024