I agree. Faulty Car brakes fail to stop a vehicle and potentially endanger the safety of myself and others.
A learning disability (better phrasing than mental illness because it doesn't imply she's crazy, just impaired) simply implies that her ability to learn is diminished -- not failing. It takes her longer to grasp concepts or learn new things. This does not translate to a endangering society or the individual.
Failing car brakes do not endanger society, either, so we can leave that aside.
As for endangering the individual, having a learning disability certainly does endanger an individual. In the most obvious case, such a person is unlikely to be as well-educated as they'd otherwise be, which means they are unlikely to be paid as much, which puts them in a higher risk bracket for all kinds of lifestyle diseases which statistically result in earlier death. Having a learning disability probably takes years off of your life, all else equal at the start.
>Failing car brakes do not endanger society, either, so we can leave that aside.
Uh, yes, they do. My inability to stop might not kill or injure just me. Your loved ones jetta might be the object I slam into attempting to slow down.
>In the most obvious case, such a person is unlikely to be as well-educated as they'd otherwise be, which means they are unlikely to be paid as much, which puts them in a higher risk bracket for all kinds of lifestyle diseases which statistically result in earlier death.
Replace "learning disability" with "using windows" or "being black" or "growing up an orphan" and your argument still holds true. Its just a generality on life, not a rational legal argument.
Aside from the fact that so many in the Forbes 500 aren't highly educated (success was the right combination of timing, luck, position, savvy, persistence, and hard work on their part) the constitution of the United States merely guarantees the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself.
Your inability to stop your car is very, very unlikely to kill enough people to affect society. If by "endangering society", you only meant "endangering at least one person other than the person without brakes", then we're just talking past each other.
> Replace "learning disability" with "using windows" or "being black" or "growing up an orphan" and your argument still holds true. Its just a generality on life, not a rational legal argument.
I don't think "using windows" fits here, but in any case, if there were someone to blame, legally, for those other things, then perhaps we'd see suits about them (and I suppose we might already in the case of orphans suing whoever could be legally blamed for the death of their parents, but I don't know of any examples offhand).
I don't know that the kid actually has (well, should have) any standing to sue, since they wouldn't exist without the actions that were taken, except possibly in the event that the sperm or egg was damaged by the defendant, rather than merely being selected in error by the defendant.
