Professionals Standard

Professionals must meet the skill and knowledge of the average practitioner in the community.

Representative cases

• Mazon v. Krafchick 158 Wash. 2d 440 · Washington Supreme Court
• Maravell v. R.J. Grondin & Sons 2007 ME 1 · Supreme Judicial Court of Maine
• Jeanette M Sanders v. Francis Alger 242 Ariz. 246 · Arizona Supreme Court

Related Negligence rules

• Negligence: DutyDuty requires defendant to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances to avoid foreseeable risks of harm.
• Standard of Care: Reasonable PersonStandard is objective; mental impairments irrelevant; physical disabilities incorporated.
• Custom EvidenceCustom is relevant but not conclusive of reasonable care.
• Informed ConsentDoctors must disclose risks a reasonable patient would consider material.
• Negligence Per SeViolation of a safety statute establishes duty and breach if plaintiff is in protected class and risk matches…
• Duty to RescueGenerally no duty to rescue absent special relationship or assumption of duty.
• Special RelationshipsRelationships like carrier-passenger or innkeeper-guest create affirmative duties of protection.
• Negligent Infliction of Emotional DistressNIED requires physical danger, zone-of-danger exposure, or bystander presence with close relationship.

Part of Torts on Core Legal Rules — foundational MBE-tested principles with primary-source citations.