The test is a different (and stricter) test than merely showing that the decision was unreasonable. In applying the objective test, the knowledge attributed to the sober and reasonable person is that which such a person would acquire as an observer of the whole course of the defendant's conduct throughout the unlawful act: R v Watson (1989) 2 All ER 865, R v Dawson (1985) 81 Cr App R 150, Causation The Reasonable Person Test Explained. The reasonable person test is a common thread that runs through the fabric of Anglo-American law. "Reasonable person" is a legal expression used in both criminal and tort law. In UCTA the person relying on an exclusion clause has to prove that it is reasonable.Whilst the reasonableness test gives the courts the flexibility necessary to adapt to the huge variety of exemption clauses, it means that the uncertainty faced by contractors prior to 1977 still remains. When the legislature uses the word “reasonable” they are instructing the court to apply the reasonable person test. the common law use of the concept of the 'reasonable person.' One human causing damage to another is certainly a tale as old as history itself. It is natural to suppose that the adoption and employ- Bolton v. Stone, a 1951 United Kingdom case is still a leading decision on this and other points. The "reasonable person test" is standard to be applied when considering a number of offences: Uttering Threats (Offence) Dangerous Operation of a Motor Vehicle (Offence) Robbery (Offence) Reasonable Apprehension of Bias; Exclusion of Evidence Under Section 24(2) of the Charter; Grounds for Detention; A reasonable person is one who is: It was held in Camplin [13] that the accused's age and sex could be attributed to the reasonable man when the jury considered the defendant's power of self-control. The reasonable person test If the jury was satisfied that the defendant was provoked, the test was whether a reasonable person would have acted as the defendant did - an objective test. It has become such a common trope in legal discourse that it scarcely receives much attention in its own right. In a professional negligence case a court may determine whether the defendant’s actions constitute negligence by application of the “reasonable person” (previously “reasonable man”) test. We can think of the development of the reasonable-person test (as a legal criterion for judgement of conduct) as being a part of the princi-pally nineteenth-century movement to reform the common law in a positivistic spirit. The ‘reasonable person’ test is one of those legal quirks that form an enduring part of the common law, despite being very hard to actually define. A reasonable person takes greater care when the likelihood and/or severity of damage are strong and less care when the likelihood and/or severity of damage are minimal. One human causing damage to another is certainly a tale as old as history itself. Civil or criminal cases involving negligence use the reasonable person standard as the basis for comparison when deciding issues of liability. The ‘reasonable person’ test is one of those legal quirks that form an enduring part of the common law, despite being very hard to actually define. A reasoning or decision is Wednesbury unreasonable (or irrational) if it is so unreasonable that no reasonable person acting reasonably could have made it (Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation (1948) 1 KB 223). For this law, the”reasonable person” is a trained customs officer, neither a novice nor an expert, neither paranoid nor overly trusting. 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