legal Definition of reasonable person
: a fictional person with an ordinary degree of reason, prudence, care, foresight, or intelligence whose conduct, conclusion, or expectation in relation to a particular circumstance or fact is used as an objective standard by which to measure or determine something (as the existence of negligence)
- we have generally held that a reasonable person would not believe that he or she has been seized when an officer merely approaches that person in a public place and begins to ask questions
- —State v. Cripps, 533 N.W.2d 388 (1995)
