Posted By Anthony B Please can anyone tell me the origin of the reference to the "man on the Clapham omnibus". I believe it was used by a judge to describe the concept of an ordinary person. I've been searching for ages with no success. Someone was confident I'd find the answer here. Please help.

Posted By duncan abbott Professional negligence vs ordinary negligence and the Bolam principle or Bolam test In the case of determining the standard of care, judgements have often relied on the reasoning of J. McNair in Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] WLR 582. "I must tell you what in law we mean by "negligence". In the ordinary case which does not involve any special skill, negligence in law means a failure to do some act which a reasonable man in the circumstances would do, or the doing of some act which a reasonable man in the circumstances would not do; and if that failure or the doing of that act results in injury, then there is a cause of action. How do you test whether this act or failure is negligent? In an ordinary case it is generally said you judge it by the action of the man in the street. He is the ordinary man. In one case it has been said you judge it by the conduct of the man on the top of a Clapham omnibus. He is the ordinary man. But where you get a situation which involves the use of some special skill or competence, then the test as to whether there has been negligence or not is not the test of the man on the top of a Clapham omnibus, because he has not got this special skill. The test is the standard of the ordinary skilled man exercising and professing to have that special skill. A man need not posses the highest expert skill; it is well established that it is sufficient if he exercises the ordinary skill of an ordinary competent man exercising that particular art. I do not think that I quarrel much with any of the submissions in law which have been put before you by counsel. Mr Fox-Andrews put it in this way, that in the case of a medical man, negligence means failure to act in accordance with the standards of reasonably competent medical men at the time. That is a perfectly accurate statement, as long as it is remembered that there may be one or more perfectly proper standards; and if he conforms with one of those proper standards, then he is not negligent.

Posted By John Webster The phrase, at least in legal circles, has been attributed to Sir Charles Bowen QC, later Lord Bowen, when junior council against the claimant in the Tichborne case, one of the longest running in British legal history (1871-74). The trial concerned an impostor who spun an incredible web of lies and deceit to claim the Tichborne fortune.