Hand Rule
Under American common law, a well known—though nonbinding—test for determining how a reasonable person might weigh the criteria listed above was set down in United States v. Carroll Towing Co. by the Chief Justice of the Second Circuit Court, Learned Hand. The case concerned a barge that had broken her mooring with the dock. Writing for the court, Hand held:
he owner's duty, as in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a function of three variables: (1) The probability that she will break away; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if she does; (3) the burden of adequate precautions.While the test offered by Hand does not encompass all the criteria available above, juries in a negligence case might well still be instructed to take the other factors into consideration in determining whether the defendant was negligent.
Read more about this topic: Reasonable Person
Famous quotes containing the words hand and/or rule:
“ah! the uplifted sword
Of his hand again my bosom! and oh, the broad
Blade of his glance that asks me to applaud
His coming!”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Charity is a cop-out so traditionally female in its apparent self-effacement that there seems resonant comfort in it. We’re no longer supposed to serve the imaginations of men who have dominated us. We are to give up ourselves instead to those whose suffering is greater than our own. Looking down is just as distorting as looking up and as dangerous in perpetuating hierarchies.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)