Nolan (Appellant) v Lucas (Respondent) 2025 SDSC 33
Nolan (Appellant) v Lucas (Respondent) [2025] SDSC 33
| Date | 28th September 2025 |
| Justices |
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| Held | Witnesses may not be admitted to establish the reasonable person standard |
| Ruling | 5-0 |
| Applicable precedent |
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MAJORITY OPINION by Justice Britz
(with Chief Justice TheLittleSparty, Justice Syndicality, Justice Ivy Cactus, and Justice Ed agreeing)
Introduction
[1] The court has heard an interlocutory appeal in relation to Nolan v Lucas [2025] Crim 128. An interlocutory appeal differs from other types of appeal as it was brought to the court whilst the trial was still ongoing, and challenges a procedural decision rather than a ruling.
Summary of the petition
[2] The appellant alleges that the court of original instance allowed the prosecution to call victims of the alleged offences (those distressed by the words “gooner”, “gooning” and variants thereof) as witnesses to establish the “reasonable person.”
[3] The appellant argues this is a violation of the existing binding precedent laid out in ppatpat and brandmal, ex parte thesigmasquad v State of SimDemocracy [2025] SDSC 13, [18.2]. In this ruling, the SC states, “The 'reasonable person', for the purposes of the reasonable person test, does not represent any specific person — including the judge.” The appellant is therefore seeking reversal of the ruling of Judge Confused and the future disallowance of such testimony. An injunction on proceedings has already been granted by the Supreme Court.
Summary of the Response
[4] The respondent has argued that the judge did not use the witnesses to represent the “reasonable person”, but instead to inform their own interpretation of the construct. The respondent goes on to argue that prohibiting judges from utilising such methods to attain the “reasonable person” risks leaving the judge with no choice but to substitute their own perspective for that of the “reasonable person”. This violates the aforementioned SC precedent.
On the “Reasonable Person” Test
[5] The clear matter of legal conflict in this appeal is two-fold. Firstly, both parties are seeking clarification as to what the “reasonable person” is, as well as how the “reasonable person” test should be applied. The court finds the original definition of the “reasonable person” stated in patpat and brandmal, ex parte thesigmasquad v State of SimDemocracy [2025] SDSC 13, [18.2] satisfactory, but this will be elaborated on later in this ruling. Nevertheless, the “reasonable person” is not, and can never be a real individual, such as a judge, witness or any affected party. It must be a fictional character, representing a roughly average user of SimDemocracy, which was established as a persuasive precedent in SD v Kamray23 [2020] Crim 5 [10].
[6] However, a point of ambiguity here is what the average user of SimDemocracy actually is. SD v fortnitewfortnitew [2025] Crim 117 [12.1.2] states: “The average SimDemocracy user account is likely an inactive bot. The average active SimDemocracy user is likely to be a teenager, full of hormones, and mentally unstable. In brief, the average SimDemocracy user is objectively unreasonable when looked at people as a whole.” However, the court believes the “reasonable person” as an average user of SimDemocracy does not correlate to a literal demographic survey of the Discord or Reddit. This would, as mentioned in SD v fortnitewfortnitew, lead to an absurd situation where inactive accounts, or “moody” teenagers, could skew said average. Instead, the court unequivocally rejects the notion that the “average” person can be conflated with the “reasonable person”, since it is not necessarily a given that a statistically “average” person will be “reasonable”. In light of this, the court rules that the “reasonable person” should be slightly more logically intelligent than average, neither sensitive nor callous, holds a set of ordinary and broadly acceptable values, is sound of body and mind, can apply common sense and foresee risks and is an ordinary member of society.
[7] Crucially, they should also have no awareness of the situation being discussed. This means that both parties must explain how such an individual would act in the scenario, such that Judges apply the perspective of the “reasonable person” in light of these arguments instead of having to speculate on their own interpretations of the standard.
[8] Based on this interpretation, real witnesses can not, in any circumstance, be used to inform what a “reasonable person” would have done in that situation. Witnesses are present to determine facts of a case, not whether the individual in question is guilty or not guilty. Witnesses who are also victims have prior awareness of the scenario at hand, leaving them with pre-informed opinions that cannot be used to determine what the “reasonable person” would have done. This is because the very nature of the test is to utilise an objective and transferable moral and behavioural standard in our legal system, but by introducing potentially biased victims and/or witnesses, this creates a subjective impression of the “reasonable person.”
Verdict
[9] For the reasons laid out above, the court sides with the appellant in that the original judge erred in admitting the testimony of victims to establish the “reasonable person”. Whilst this testimony may be useful in establishing facts to make a judgement, or examining if distress did actually occur, it cannot be used in the context of determining how a “reasonable person” would react.
[10] Therefore, the ruling of Judge Confused is hereby reversed, and the case shall return to the applicable stage before witnesses were called upon to gauge the “reasonable person.” The court of first instance must not use the testimonies of any witnesses to ascertain the “reasonable person.” Witness testimony may, however, remain admissible for other factual purposes.