Incapacity

“ An utter Incapacity to work must arise from some Defect, occasioned either by Nature or Accident. Natural Incapacities are greatly the most (perhaps the only) considerable ones; for as to accidental Maims, how very rarely do they happen, and, I must add, how very nobly are they provided for, when they do happen! Again, as to natural Incapacities, they are but few, unless those two general Circumstances, one of which must, and the other may befal all Men ”

“ Then the man pleadeth his special incapacity, whatsoever that may be,—as, for instance, impecuniosity, or that he hath one or many wives in his household, or that he is of mean figure, or small capacity ”

“ All the cases decide that mere imbecility will not do: that an inability to manage a man's affairs will not do, unless that inability and that incapacity to manage his affairs, AMOUNT to evidence that he is of unsound mind: and he must be found to be so. ”

“ Physical incapacity, mental incapacity, limitations of our environment, conflict between one wish and another of our own, opposition from other people, and mere lack of time, compel us to give up many of our wishes. ”

“ A servant who fails to fulfill an agreement in respect of work, or who is perpetually breaking crockery, or who pilfers, may have to suffer pain from being discharged;312 but since the evils to be borne by all concerned if incapacity or misconduct is tolerated, not in one case only but habitually, must be much greater, such infliction of pain is warranted as a means to preventing greater pain. ”

“ In several of my maturer ventures, I can recognize the same mental condition of serene indifference to danger while doing what I thought my duty, owing, perhaps, in a great measure to ignorance or incapacity to realize the danger, but also largely to ingrained confidence in an overruling Providence which took account of my steps and would carry me through. ”

“ When the moment comes to free themselves, the nature of the impediment does not stop them, provided that it be not beyond their strength; and henceforth the argument of incapacity cannot be raised when a mere paper barrier is in question. ”

“ "And this accident came about . . . ?"
"Through nature's unpredictability not man's incapacity. No errors were committed in our maneuvers. Nevertheless, we can't prevent a loss of balance from taking its toll. One may defy human laws, but no one can withstand the laws of nature." ”

“ For, as I shall certainly not accomplish it, there will be an outcry at my incapacity, and a pretext for my removal. I shall fulfil my obligations nevertheless, as conscientiously to foes as to friends. ”

“ A servant, by entering upon and continuing in a given employment, by the fact of such continuance is presumed to have voluntarily assumed the risk of personal injuries he may receive, by reason of the ordinary dangers inherent in the employment, by reason of any defect not necessarily inherent in the employment which he knew and understood as a danger before injury received, whether such defect was occasioned by his master's failure to perform his common-law duty of furnishing his men with a safe place to work or not. ”

“ The consequences, then, to the poor sufferer, whose offence is, at most, but an error of judgment or a weakness of the heart, are the same as if her imprudence were indeed a crime of the blackest dye. ”

“ Both minds must meet in such a transaction; and if one is so weak, unsound, and diseased that the party is incapable of understanding the nature and quality of the act to be performed, or its consequences, he is incompetent to assent to the terms a d conditions of the instrument, whether that state of his mind was produced by mental or physical disease, and whether it resulted from ordinary sickness, or from accident, or from debauchery, or from habitual and protracted intemperance. ”

“ Like vaulting ambition, I have overleaped myself, and pay the penalty in an advanced old age. If I have now any aptitude for tumbling it is through bodily infirmity, for I am worse on my feet than I used to be on my head. ”

“ When you charge the neglect of any duty as a crime, or account its fulfilment a virtue, you suppose the existence of a power to neglect or fulfil; and it is the exercise of this power, in the one way or the other, which constitutes the merit or demerit. ”

“ Under the classification of the unfit he places all those persons who, on account of mental, moral or physical defect, constitute a burden to society. These are, principally, the epileptic, the pauper, the insane and the criminal. ”

“ Strictly speaking, the term negligence is limited in its application to carelessness in the performance of professional duty; carelessness is its proper synonyme. Duties performed without care, caution, attention, diligence, skill, prudence, or judgment, are negligently performed. Acts are so designated which are performed by one heedlessly, even when there is no purpose to omit the performance of duty. ”

“ Not regardless of consequences, we must yet meet consequences; seeing the hazards which surround the discharge of public duty, it must yet be discharged. For myself, Sir, I shun no responsibility justly devolving on me, here or elsewhere, in attempting to maintain the cause. ”

“ Every physician of large experience must have seen cases of self-created, unresisted invalidism end with mysterious abruptness and the return of mental, moral and physical competence, under the influence of some call upon their sense of duty made by calamity, such as an acute illness in the household, financial ruin, or the death of a husband. ”

“ Must not such a cruel constraint have an influence upon their temper as well as upon their constitution? Their first feeling is a feeling of constraint and of suffering. To all their necessary movements they find only obstacles. More unfortunate than chained criminals, they make fruitless efforts, they fret themselves, they cry. ”

“ Every soldier of the army of the United States who has served, or may serve, honestly and faithfully, twenty years in the same, and every discharged soldier, who has suffered by reason of disease or wounds incurred in the service and in the line of his duty, rendering him incapable of further military service, if such disability has not been occasioned by his own misconduct. ”

“ One flogging, without the slightest stigma attaching to it, or reprimand, is the certain penalty of failure in his task. With hardihood or without it, I then had no chance, though, at all events, I acquired it, and that too, to such a degree, and I deemed the penalty so trivial, that I henceforth enjoyed a delightful sense of freedom and independence in its way. ”

“ Under the ordinary American rule continuance at his work by the employé with knowledge of a dangerous defect in machinery or in his place of employment can mean but one thing—a conscious, willing assent to the continuance of the danger to his life or safety, and a voluntary assumption of all chances of personal injury from it, absolving the master from all responsibility for such injuries, even if this defect exists by the master's carelessness or indifference to the employé's safety. ”

“ All law, says the utilitarian, implies 'sanctions'—motives equally operative upon all members of society; and, as the last resort, so far as criminal law is concerned, the sanction of physical suffering. ”

“ While I have done my duty from a worldly point of view, by my wife and family, I have been persistently injuring many hundreds of my fellow beings, and showing no consideration whatever for their moral or physical welfare. ”

“ If, moreover, possessing skill, he undertakes to heal a wound or cure a disease, and through his neglect the party is not cured, or is impaired in health by the treatment, he is also responsible. Behold the two horns of the dilemma which threaten the physician! If he has skill, and neglects to employ it, he is liable in damages; if he has not skill, he is equally liable. ”

“ Special circumstances, again, such as the dotage of old age, mental weakness, faults of character, or offenses against society, may, in certain cases, tend greatly to limit and control, or otherwise modify, the parental dignity and authority. ”

“ On the other hand, there is a carelessness as to dress and diet, to which the strongest constitution must at length yield; and the intense consciousness of strength and vigor, which tempts one to deem himself invulnerable, not infrequently is the cause of life-long infirmity and disability. ”

“ Now you, sire, are young; you are and must be for some years unmarried; life is uncertain and" (here he looked at me steadily) "your physicians are of opinion that certain seeds of weakness, sown by your severe illness, have not yet been eradicated from your constitution. ”

“ What puts it into the heart or the head of the assailed party to repel injury with injury? It is like begetting its like: injury suggesting, prompting, and producing injury. No better way is thought of or desired, than life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blow for blow, force for force, injury for injury. ”

“ Stout, 17 Wall. 657, 663, 21 L.Ed. 745.↑ The government expressed satisfaction with the trial judge's charge, which, as to total and permanent disability, contained this statement: 'A total disability is any physical or nervous injury which makes it impossible for a person to follow continuously a substantially gainful occupation at any kind of work for which he was competent or qualified, physically and mentally, or for which he could qualify himself by a reasonable amount of study and training. ”

“ And there are those men, such as myself, for instance, who from their position, their vast interests and heavy responsibilities, from the almost incalculable issues dependent on their judgment and their action, are called upon to endure this strain in its most exhausting manifestations, who are compelled to subordinate personal case, even health itself, to public obligation. ”

“ XIII. Remember that whatever duty you seem obliged to perform, the obligation still supposeth that it is not naturally impossible to you, and therefore you are bound to do it as well as you can: and when other men's force, or your natural disability, hindereth you from doing it as you would, you are not therefore disobliged from doing it at all ”

“ An involuntary mishap has taken place. Indeed, what mishap is voluntary? And now those who have made up this suit against him, carrying with it the penalty of death, have turned his mishap into matter of accusation. ”

“ Inefficiency and defect in scientific and social contrivances are made apparent by accident, which, having entailed human suffering, is therefore productive of effort to rectify the cause of danger, and thus of reducing the risk of further punishment. ”

“ Conscious of the motives, on which they had acted, they prudently preferred infamy to danger, and were better prepared to meet the contempt, than to rouze the indignation of the whole people. Had they expelled those five members, the consequences of the new doctrine of incapacitation would have come immediately home to every man. ”

“ It would have been wonderful indeed, if, a century ago, when our statute book was written in blood, when our fellow-subjects at home were under the ban of religious disability, and beaten to the earth beneath the weight of penal enactments, any traces of wisdom had been exhibited in the management of a distant dependency. ”

“ Can we reasonably expect any good result can follow such an iniquity? How could you imagine that He who has supported and upheld your cause so long, would fail you at your need? It is a perilous thing to do ill that good may come of it. ”

“ I suppose that the inability exists in me, and not in my circumstances. I am like the gentleman who tired himself out with jumping, but never could jump high enough to see over his own standing-collar. ”

“ Absence from duty, for instance, is an offence that can find no condonement on active service. But a man with a clean record may shirk his duty under the influence of a fit of depression caused by passing indisposition or some other external circumstance. ”

“ He put himself under obligation--in moments of supreme need--to dangerous persons, and suffered from the familiarity and perhaps the contempt of some who were his inferiors in breeding, in heart, and in soul. ”

“ It will, it is believed, be found, upon examination of the authorities, that wherever substantial mental suffering would be the natural and probable result of the act, there compensation for injury to feelings has been allowed, and that where no mental suffering would ordinarily result, or if resulting, would naturally be but trifling,and,being unaccompanied by visible signs of injury,would afford a wide scope for imaginative ills, there damages have been disallowed. ”

“ Only those who have known the situation can fully appreciate the restraint and constraint involved in such chronic invalidism, not only for the one who bears, but perhaps still more for the one who must watch, and sympathize, and shield, and protect, and as far as possible keep off the pressure and strain of the crowding, noisy, bustling, indifferent world. ”

“ But to prevent Disorder and Mischief among such, they that should be sent over for little or no Faults but Idleness, should meet with all civil Treatment and Encouragement, when they did their Endeavours, but undergo the Severities of Bridewell for their Faults or great Neglect. ”

“ Granting that his relations and labors may be acceptable, he falls upon the inevitable necessity of devoting his time and labor, during the vigor and strength of his days, for a meager compensation, and then pass into old age, and its attendant infirmities, as a dependancy, if not a pauper. ”

“ Those thousand vexations which come upon us through the unreasonableness, the carelessness, the various constitutional failings, or ill-adaptedness of others to our peculiarities of character, form a very large item of the disquietudes of life ”