REASONABLENESS STANDARD

  1. A requirement of the Consumer Leasing Act that takes into consideration the individuals' circumstances according to the amount of harm experienced by the lessor if they early terminate, make late payments or cease to make payments. The reasonableness standard looks at delinquency, default or early termination based on the anticipated or actual harm caused by such delinquency, default or early termination; the difficulties in proving the loss; and finally the inconvenience in finding a solution.
  2. A benchmark used in court when reviewing the decisions made by a particular party. The reasonableness standard is a test which asks whether the decisions made were legitimate and designed to remedy a certain issue under the circumstances at the time. Courts using this standard look at both the ultimate decision, and the process by which a party went about making that decision.