Person of Below Average Intelligence
A person of substandard intelligence is held under common law to the same standard of a reasonable prudent person, to encourage them to exert an increased effort of responsibility to their community, in light of their handicap, and as a result of the practical difficulty of proving what reduced standard should apply (Vaughn v. Menlove, 3 Bing. (N.C.) 468, 432 Eng.Rep.490 (1837).) Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 289 cmt. n (noting that the “reasonable person” standard makes allowances for age and physical disability but not “attention, perception, memory, knowledge of other pertinent matters, intelligence, and judgment. Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Common Law, 108 (Little, Brown, & Co. 1881): “The standards of the law are standards of general application. The law takes no account of the infinite varieties of temperament, intellect, and education which make the internal character of a given act so different in different men.”
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