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. in 1947 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: Reasonableness
Famous quotes containing the words hand and/or rule:
“John Anderson my jo, John,
We clamb the hill the gither;
And mony a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
And hand in hand we’ll go;
And sleep the gither at the foot,
John Anderson my Jo.”
—Robert Burns (1759–1796)
“The world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base prudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no other faculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; a prudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, which never gives, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of any project,—Will it bake bread?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)