Eggshell Skull
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The eggshell rule (also thin skull rule, papier-mâché-plaintiff rule, or talem qualem rule) is a well-established
legal doctrine A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, Procedural law, procedural steps, or Test (law), test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. A doctrine comes about w ...
in
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
, used in some
tort law A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...
systems, with a similar doctrine applicable to
criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
. The rule states that, in a tort case, the unexpected frailty of the injured person is not a valid defense to the seriousness of any injury caused to them.


Law

This rule holds that a
tortfeasor A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law can be contrasted with criminal law, which deals with criminal wrongs that are punishable ...
is liable for all consequences resulting from their tortious (usually
negligent Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as a ...
) activities leading to an injury to another person, even if the victim suffers an unusually high level of damage (e.g. due to a pre-existing
vulnerability Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." A window of vulnerability (WOV) is a time frame within which defensive measures are diminished, com ...
or
medical condition A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medica ...
).. The eggshell skull rule takes into account the physical, social, and economic attributes of the plaintiff which might make them more susceptible to injury.''Nader v Urban Transit Authority of NSW'' (1985) 2 NSWLR 501, Court of Appeal (NSW, Australia) per McHugh JA
LawCite records
.
It may also take into account the family and cultural environment.. The term implies that if a person had a skull as delicate as that of the shell of an egg, and a tortfeasor who was unaware of the condition injured that person's head, causing the skull unexpectedly to break, the defendant would be held liable for all damages resulting from the wrongful contact, even if the tortfeasor did not intend to cause such a severe injury. In criminal law, the general maxim is that the
defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...
must "take their victims as they find them", as echoed in the judgment of Lord Justice Lawton in '' R v. Blaue'' (1975), in which the defendant was held responsible for killing his victim, despite his contention that her refusal of a blood transfusion constituted an intervening act. The doctrine is applied in all areas of torts –
intentional torts An intentional tort is a category of torts that describes a civil wrong resulting from an intentional act on the part of the tortfeasor (alleged wrongdoer). The term negligence, on the other hand, pertains to a tort that simply results from the f ...
,
negligence Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as a ...
, and
strict liability In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant. ...
cases – as well as in criminal law. There is no requirement of physical contact with the victim – if a
trespasser In the law of tort, property, and criminal law a trespasser is a person who commits the act of trespassing on a property, that is, without the permission of the owner. Being present on land as a trespasser thereto creates liability in the ...
's wrongful presence on the victim's property so terrifies the victim that he has a fatal
heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
, the trespasser will be liable for the damages stemming from his original tort. The foundation for this rule is based primarily on policy grounds. The courts do not want the defendant or accused to rely on the victim's own vulnerability to avoid liability. The thin skull rule is not to be confused with the related
crumbling skull rule The crumbling skull rule is a well-established legal doctrine used in some tort law A tort is a civil wrong that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortious act. Tort law ca ...
in which the plaintiff suffers from a detrimental position (from a prior injury, for instance) pre-existent to the occurrence of the present tort. In the "crumbling skull" rule, the prior condition is only to be considered with respect to distinguishing it from any new injury arising from the present tort – as a means of apportioning damages in such a way that the defendant would not be liable for placing the plaintiff in a better position than they were in prior to the present tort.


Example

In an example, a person who has
osteogenesis imperfecta Osteogenesis imperfecta (; OI), colloquially known as brittle bone disease, is a group of genetic disorders that all result in bones that break easily. The range of symptoms—on the skeleton as well as on the body's other organs—may be mi ...
(OI; also known as "brittle bone syndrome") is more likely to be injured in a motor vehicle accident. If the person with OI is hit from behind in a motor vehicle collision and suffers medical damages (such as
clavicle The clavicle, or collarbone, is a slender, S-shaped long bone approximately 6 inches (15 cm) long that serves as a strut between the shoulder blade and the sternum (breastbone). There are two clavicles, one on the left and one on the rig ...
fracture), it would not be a valid defense to state that the osteogenesis imperfecta was the cause of the fracture.


Case illustrations

In the 1962 English case of ''
Smith v Leech Brain & Co Smith v Leech Brain & Co 9622 QB 405 is a landmark English tort law case in negligence, concerning remoteness of damage or causation in law. It marked the establishment of the eggshell skull rule, the idea that an individual is held responsible ...
'', an employee in a factory was splashed with molten metal. The metal burned him on his lip, which happened to be
premalignant A precancerous condition is a condition, tumor or lesion involving abnormal cells which are associated with an increased risk of developing into cancer. Clinically, precancerous conditions encompass a variety of abnormal tissues with an increased ...
tissue. He died three years later from cancer triggered by the injury. The judge held that as long as the initial injury was foreseeable, the defendant was liable for all the harm. In 1891, the
Wisconsin Supreme Court The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the highest appellate court in Wisconsin. The Supreme Court has jurisdiction over original actions, appeals from lower courts, and regulation or administration of the practice of law in Wisconsin. Location The Wi ...
came to a similar result in '' Vosburg v. Putney''. In that case, a boy kicked another from across the aisle in the classroom. It turned out that the victim had an unknown microbial condition that was irritated, and resulted in him entirely losing the use of his leg. No one could have predicted the level of injury. Nevertheless, the court found that the kicking was unlawful because it violated the "order and decorum of the classroom", and the perpetrator was therefore fully liable for the injury. In '' Benn v. Thomas'', the appellate court determined that the eggshell rule should have been applied to a case in which a man had a heart attack and died after being bruised in the chest during a rear-end car accident.512 N.W.2d 537 (Iowa, 1994) In the Australian case of ''Nader v Urban Transit Authority of NSW'', the plaintiff was a 10 year old boy who struck his head on a bus stop pole while alighting from a slowly moving bus. He developed a rare psychological condition known as
Ganser Syndrome Ganser syndrome is a rare dissociative disorder characterized by nonsensical or wrong answers to questions and other dissociative symptoms such as fugue, amnesia or conversion disorder, often with visual pseudohallucinations and a decreased state ...
. The defendant argued that the illness resulted from his family’s response to the accident. McHugh JA said (at 537), "The defendant must take the plaintiff with all his weaknesses, beliefs and reactions as well as his capacities and attributes, physical, social and economic. If the result of an accident is that a ten year old boy reacts to his parents’ concern over his injuries and develops an hysterical condition, no reason of justice, morality or entrenched principle appears to me to prevent his recovery of compensation." In the Australian case of '' Kavanagh v Akhtar'', the court held the tortfeasor should take into account the plaintiff's family and cultural setting. Equality before the law puts a heavy onus on the person who would argue that the "unusual" reaction of an injured plaintiff should be disregarded because a minority religious or cultural situation may not have been foreseeable.


Exceptions

Intervening cause is typically an exception to the eggshell skull rule. If an injury is not immediate, but a separate situation agitates the injury (such as the injured party being involved in a vehicular collision while being taken to a hospital), the tortfeasor is not liable under common law in Australia (see ''Haber v Walker'',. and ''Mahoney v Kruschich Demolitions''.). In ''Haber v Walker'' it was held that a plaintiff will not be liable for a novus actus interveniens (intervening act) if the chain of causation was broken by a voluntary, human act or, an independent event, which in conjunction with the wrongful act, was so unlikely as to be termed a coincidence. In ''Mahoney v Kruschich Demolitions'' the plaintiff, Glogovic, was injured while working on the demolition of a power house for the respondent. While being treated for his injuries, his injuries were exacerbated by the negligent medical treatment of the appellant, Mahony. It was held that there was no novus actus as a result of medical treatment of injuries caused by the defendant’s negligence, unless such treatment is inexcusably bad or completely outside the bounds of what a reputable medical practitioner might prescribe.


References

{{reflist Common law Tort law Legal doctrines and principles