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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Famous quotes containing the words person, average and/or intelligence:
“A person who thinks himself important speaks slowly.”
—Chinese proverb.
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)