Reasonable care

“ A man must give reasonable care to the property of another given into his keeping. Well, what is reasonable care? Is it reasonable for him to take such care of it as he does of his own? Not if he is unreasonably careless of his own. And the law takes another step, and says you must take such care of it as is reasonable, as a reasonable man would, and the courts then go on to define what a reasonable man under the circumstances would do. ”

“ We cannot give this proposition our assent. It is too well established to require argument or citation of authority that the care which the city is bound to exercise in the maintenance of its streets is ordinary and reasonable care, the care which ordinarily marks the conduct of a person of average prudence and foresight. ”

“ Here we admittedly have a case in which it was the duty of the company to exercise ordinary care, but what does an instruction mean that informs the jury that in certain circumstances a greater degree of care is required, when it has for a background an instruction, which is applicable to all circumstances, that all reasonable precaution must be used? ”

“ There is no fixed standard in the law by which a court is enabled to arbitrarily say in every case what conduct shall be considered reasonable and prudent, and what shall constitute ordinary care, under any and all circumstances. The terms 'ordinary care,' 'reasonable prudence,' and such like terms, as applied to the conduct and affairs of men, have a relative significance, and cannot be arbitrarily defined. What may be deemed ordinary care in one case may, under different surroundings and circumstances, be gross negligence. ”

“ It was further pointed out that what in any particular case is a reasonable amount of care and skill depends on the circumstances of that case; that if there is nothing which ought to excite suspicion, less care may properly be considered reasonable than could be so considered if suspicion was or ought to have been aroused. ”

“ The principle in all cases of this class is that the care exercised must be reasonable; and the standard of reasonableness naturally must vary according to the circumstances of the case, the trust reposed, and the skill and appliances at the disposal of the person to whom another confides a duty. ”

“ This is upon the theory that reasonable or ordinary care in a case of that kind is the highest care which human ingenuity can practically exercise, and that, as a matter of law, courts will hold every reasonably prudent and careful man to the exercise of the utmost care and diligence in protecting the public from the dangers necessarily incident to the carrying on of a hazardous business. ”

“ Although specific duties in a given case can be determined only after consideration of all of the circumstances, the standard of ordinary care is the wellspring from which those more specific duties flow. ”

“ Inasmuch, therefore, as carelessness varies in degree, it is necessary to know what degree of it is requisite to constitute culpable negligence. What measure of care does the law demand? What amount of anxious consideration for the interests of others is a legal duty, and within what limits is indifference lawful?
We have first to notice a possible standard of care which the law might have adopted but has not. It does not demand the highest degree of care of which human nature is capable. ”

“ Perhaps the learned judge, by the use of the term extraordinary care, in the above charge, explained as it is by the context, may have intended nothing more than that increased degree of care and diligence, which the exigency of particular circumstances might require, and which men of ordinary care and prudence would use under like circumstances, to guard against danger. ”

“ Proposed Reforms.—It is the duty of the poor-law boards to devote great attention to the health, not merely of those children for whose care they are directly responsible, but also for poor children in general. ”

“ What will amount to the exercise of ordinary care will vary greatly with circumstances, as under one state of facts that course of conduct which would amount to the exercise of ordinary care might, under another state of facts, fall far short thereof, and be clear proof of negligence. ”

“ It is a principle of law, as well as of natural justice, that greater consideration and care are due to persons known to be unable to take care of themselves than to those who are fully able to do so. ”

“ Whatever methods are employed, the principle already enunciated must be maintained that the patient in his own interest and in that of his family must be the subject of uninterrupted care and supervision. ”

“ It was likewise found by the same commission that of those in good health or fair physical condition, eighty-five per cent were self-supporting, while only eighteen per cent of those in poor physical condition took care of themselves. ”

“ It is materially more want of care than constitutes simple inadvertence. It is an act or omission respecting legal duty of an aggravated character as distinguished from a mere failure to exercise ordinary care. ”

“ When human life or safety are involved, the law exacts a higher degree of care than is required in case where they are not put in peril. So, also, when a person puts himself in a position of known danger, the duty is placed upon him of exercising that degree of care which the circumstances require of any ordinarily prudent man so situated. ”

“ I must consider only my child's welfare;—and in doing so I must try to sift my own feelings and my own judgment, and ascertain, if it be possible, whether my distaste to the man is reasonable or irrational;—whether I should serve her or sacrifice her by obstinacy of refusal. ”

“ To render a medical man liable even civilly for negligence, or want of due care or skill, it is not enough that there has been a less degree of skill than some other medical man may have shown, or a less degree of care than even he himself might have bestowed, nor is it enough that he himself acknowledges some degree of want of care ”

“ It is, to begin with, an inherent drawback of any general Destitution Authority for the work of Curative Treatment that it is necessarily a "mixed" Authority, having to deal, not with [285] patients suffering from any one disease, but with persons of the most diverse needs, and requiring treatment of very different nature. To entrust to one and the same Authority the care of the infants and the aged, the children and the able-bodied adults, the sick and the healthy, maids and widows ”

“ The rule deducible from them is, that the measure of care against accident, which one must take to avoid responsibility, is that which a person of ordinary prudence and caution would use if his own interests were to be affected, and the whole risk were his own. ”

“ The public care little for medical titles, or for those artificial distinctions which, for the more convenient subdivision of labour, we have established amongst ourselves; they look for men who will prove useful to them in time of need—men in whom they can place confidence, whom they may admit without fear into the bosom of their families, whose feelings and behaviour are those of gentlemen, who are skilled to relieve their bodily sufferings, and to whom they may open the secrets of their hearts and turn for sympathy and advice in seasons of affliction. ”

“ From the time of Alfred to the present day, statutes and decisions have busied themselves with defining the precautions to be taken in certain familiar cases; that is, with substituting for the vague test of the care exercised by a prudent man, a precise one of specific acts or omissions. The fundamental thought is still the same, that the way prescribed is that in which prudent men are in the habit of acting, or else is one laid down for cases where prudent men might otherwise be in doubt. ”

“ As an economical as well as a humane measure, the various States can well afford to make such provision, more especially for the large body of feeble-minded who are now without any medical care whatever. ”

“ The existence of an institution, whether hospital, almshouse, or orphanage, to the care of which one may easily dismiss a sick member of the household, or to which one may turn for gratuitous care and treatment, must inevitably act as strong temptations to those who are willing to evade personal obligations that honestly belong to them. ”

“ And if ordinary care is due, such as a prudent man would exercise in his own affairs, failure to bestow that amount of care is called 'ordinary' negligence. In each case the negligence, whatever epithet we give it, is failure to bestow the care and skill which the situation demands, and hence it is more strictly accurate, perhaps, to call it simply 'negligence.' And this seems to be the tendency of modern authorities. ”

“ That all these specialised and preventive Authorities be empowered and required to enforce, by counsel and warning, by the sustained pressure of public opinion, and where needed by process of law, the obligation of all able-bodied persons to maintain themselves and their families in due health and efficiency. ”

“ The difficulty appears to be in respect to the jurisprudential functions of the officers of health to satisfy the public anxiety for the exercise of solemn care in every case of a multitude, where only one case in that multitude will, on the doctrine of chances, be a case calling for intervention ”

“ Can he feel sure that his patients are well looked after, attended to according to his wishes, and kindly treated? Can he do justice, lastly, as a physician, to any one afflicted patient, whose restoration to health and to society depends on the efficient exercise of his medical skill, and do this without neglecting other patients and other duties? To these questions, surely, every thinking, reasoning man will reply in the negative. ”

“ If, moreover, possessing skill, he undertakes to heal a wound or cure a disease, and through his neglect the party is not cured, or is impaired in health by the treatment, he is also responsible. Behold the two horns of the dilemma which threaten the physician! If he has skill, and neglects to employ it, he is liable in damages; if he has not skill, he is equally liable. ”

“ The viciousness of the instruction in question lies in its tendency to lead the jury to infer that the legal standard of ordinary care was raised by the circumstances recited, thus making possible the inference that a great but undefined extent of care was required, whereas all that the law exacted was the ordinary care which the situation demanded, or such care as it is to be assumed that an ordinarily prudent man would exercise in the circumstances, were the risk his own. ”

“ No doubt this principle should be applied with all reasonableness and care, but it is extremely important for the highest welfare, for the development of the best possibilities of the people, that it should be definitely recognised. ”

“ Such persons shall be visited as frequently as is provided by the rules of the board and/or regulations of the department or required by the circumstances of the case, in order that any treatment or service tending to restore such persons to a condition of self-support and to relieve their distress may be rendered and in order that assistance or care may be given only in such amount and as long as necessary. ”

“ So jealously does the law guard the lives and persons of the people, that every time the physician writes a prescription, or the surgeon makes an incision, he takes his purse, his liberty, or, perhaps, his life in his hand. The risk is not all on the part of the patient, despite a popular impression that the only pocketbook likely to be depleted or the only life liable to be sacrificed is that of the sick man. ”

“ In serious Truth, if proper Care should be taken to provide for the present Poor, and to prevent their Encrease by laying some effectual Restraints on the Extravagance of the lower Sort of People, the remaining part of this Treatise would be rendered of little Consequence ”

“ This difference in the type of care contemplated seems most naturally to account for the discrepancy found with many writers, between their estimates for the school population and for the general population.
51 C. Desirable Versus Immediately Advisable Social Care A second source of confusion arises when one investigator is thinking of the number of feeble-minded, the care of whom it is desirable that society should assume, and another is thinking of the feeble-minded, the care of whom it is advisable for society to assume at once. ”

“ Education, medical and hospital treatment, industrial insurance, sickness and age benefits, and other things are all provided by the State, when the need arises, without direct charge upon the individual. ”

“ The Local Authorities do not apply the Principle of Curative Treatment wholly, or even mainly, for the pleasure or the advantage of the individual sufferer; what they have in view is the prevention of future evils to the community from the spread or recurrence of the disease, or the continuance of the disability. ”

“ It is, moreover, an inevitable complement of this corporate responsibility and of the recognition of the indissoluble partnership, that new and enlarged obligations, unknown in a state of laisser faire, are placed upon the individual—such as the obligation of the parent to keep his children in health, and to send them to school at the time and in the condition insisted upon; the obligation of the young person to be well-conducted and to learn; the obligation of the adult not to infect his environment and to submit when required to [271] hospital treatment. ”

“ The only rule to go by is, that the work and occupation shall be for their own good, and, that they shall not be made or encouraged to work for any other purpose.
As a rule, patients should be allowed to employ themselves in ways that most interest them, provided it is useful and seems to be beneficial. ”