To determine breach of duty's existence, a determination is made as to the standard of care and an evaluation of the defendant's conduct in reflection of that determined standard. If duty of care by the defendant can be proven, using the reasonable care standard, then negligence can be an issue. The defendant needs to have recognized the risks created by her or his actions and to understand what could happen from those risks taken. The general standard of care is then applied to the specific circumstances of the situation and the jury must establish whether the defendant's conduct was negligent. When the courts decide if duty was owed they consider the objective or subjective standard.
Objective standard considers the defendant's actions against a hypothetical reasonable person.
With the subjective standard, the court considers whether the tortfeasor, the person who is allegedly negligent, believes her or his actions were reasonable. For example, if someone attempts to rob an elderly woman in a parking lot and she happens to have a gun and shoots her attacker, the objective standard would ask if a reasonable person would have acted the same way. In the subjective standard the courts would ask the elderly woman if she thought she was acting in a reasonable fashion. Professionals are held to a higher standard of care than an ordinary reasonable person would be. Police officers, for example, must behave as a reasonable officer would do so rather than a reasonable person.