(A) The inability of a person to manage their own care. (B) The inability of a person to understand the legal consequences of their actions, for example, signing a contract when intoxicated. (C) The want of a quality legally to do, give, transmit, or receive something. 2. It arises from nature, from the law, or from both. From nature, when the party has not his senses, as, in the case of an idiot; from the law, as, in the case of a bastard who cannot inherit from nature and the law; as, in the case of a married woman, who cannot make contracts or a will. 3. In general, the incapacity ceases with the cause which produces it. If the idiot should obtain his senses, or the married woman’s husband die, their incapacity would be at an end. 4. When a cause of action arises during the incapacity of a person having the right to sue, the act of limitation does not, in general, commence to run till the incapacity has been removed. But two incapacities cannot be joined in order to come within the statute.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
Want of capacity; want of power or ability to take or dispose; want of legal ability to act. Legal incapacity. This expression implies that the person in view has the right vested in him, but is prevented by some impediment from exercising it; as in the case of minors, femes covert, lunatics, etc. An administrator has no right until letters are issued to him. Therefore he cannot benefit (as respects the time before obtaining letters) by a saving clause in a statute of limitations in favor of persons under a legal incapacity to sue. Gates v. Brattle, 1 Root (Conn.) 187.