Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Florida

Re: Reasonable Standard

The "reasonable person" standard in essence judges behavior by what a reasonable person would think of the behavior under the same or similar circumstances. In other words, if a male co-worker were to say to a female co-worker "my, you are looking very good today," a reasonable woman would most likely interpret this as a complement (depending, of course, on context, facial expression, time of day, place of occurrence, etc.). On the other hand, if the same co-worker were to say "My, you are looking very SEXY today," a reasonable woman might take offense (again, depending on factors too numerous to describe here).

In essence whether a behavior is inappropropriate or not boils down to how a reasonable person would react to it under the same or similar conditions. The law does not protect the feelings of unreasonable people. For example, if a woman was unreasonably self-conscious, and was offended by an innocent statement that her new dress looked nice, in the absence of a history of sexually inappropriate or offensive comments, that statement, standing alone and judged by a reasonable person standard would not be inappropriate.

I hope this helps.