Mary Akanbi
4th June, 2025
By M.O.Idam Esq
This principle often contradicts regular human considerations about daily occurrences. It is a Common Law principle which cuts across Civil Law, Torts Law and Criminal Law. It is meant to keep human conducts within lawful boundaries.
The Eggshell Skull Rule or the Thin Skull Rule as a legal principle presupposes that where an injury is negligently caused to another who is already frail or fragile and that other suffers a serious damage or injury such that he may not have suffered were it not for his peculiar frailty or fragility, the law would hold the Tortfeasor completely liable to the extent of the injury or damages suffered by the victim irrespective of how slight or minor was his negligent acts.
In an attempt to provide a clearer explanation of this principle, I will refer to the reasoning of the court in Dulieu Vs. White & Sons ( 192 01) 2 KB 669 at 679 the court held that “if a man is negligently run over or otherwise negligently injured in his body, it is no answer to the sufferer’s claim for damages that he would have suffered less injury, or no injury at all, if he had not had an unusually thin skull or an unusually weak heart.”
Under this principle, the law contemplates that a party must conduct his actions within lawful standard and should not subject the peculiar health conditions of others or even their beliefs to the weight of their negligent acts or conducts.
In R Vs. Blaue 1975] 1 WLR 1411; [1975] 3 All ER 446; (1975) After the Victim refused his sexual advances, the Defendant stabbed her and she was rushed to the hospital for medical attention, while receiving treatment, the victim refused a blood transfusion because of her religious belief as a Jehovah’s Witness. Consiquently, she dies as a result of loss of blood. The Defendant’s defence that her death occurred because of her refusal to accept blood transfusion was refused, the court held that the Defendant was liable for her death as it was the initial injury that caused the victim to loose blood thereby putting her in the state of choosing whether or not to accept a blood transfusion.
Similarly, in Patrick V. State (2018) CLR 2(w) (SC) The brief facts of the case is that the Appellant bought a motorcycle for one Sule (deceased ) to use for commercial purpose and make daily remittances to him, the Appellant also showed the deceased where to pack the motorcycle everyday he returned from work. The deceased defaulted and the Appellant went in search of him, eventually found him battered already near a gutter and went ahead to beat him up. The deceased was found dead the next day. The Appellant during his trial pleaded that Sule was badly wounded already when he met him and would have given up his ghost even if he did not touch him, due to his already frailty. The Court held that as long as the Appellant met him alive and went ahead to occassion harm on him regardless of his condition, he was liable for his death.
This principle contemplates that a victim of a negligent conduct ought to have been treated in his peculiar health condition. For a Defendant to be exonerated from his harmful or negligent act, his victim must have suffered no injury at all by the acts. That the harm caused to the victim was incapable of occasioning the damage he subsequently suffered were it not for his weakness or preexisting infirmity is no defence. A Tort feasor must be responsible to the full extent of the injury suffered by his victim irrespective of whether it was the victim’s preexisting health condition that aggravated his injury.
In Vosburg Vs. Pitney 80 wis. 523. 50 N.W. (403) ( Wisc 1891). Here, a student was slightly hit on the leg in a playful manner, maybe out of childish exorberant, the fellow developed an injury which refused to respond to treatments as a result of an existing medical condition and eventually, he lost his leg, the Defendant’s defence that the injury caused to the fellow student would not have occassioned the loss of his leg were it not for his preexisting medical condition was dismissed. The court held the Defendant fully liable to the extent of the damages suffered as the effect of the Defendant’s negligent and unlawful acts.
CONCLUSION
The Eggshell Skull Rule or ‘Thin Skull Rule’ as a legal principle seeks to police or hold a malicious or mischievous third party accountable to the full extent of the damages that his action would have provoked or aggravated, but not necessarily caused.
By this rule, a Defendant is enjoined to keep his acts within the confines of the law else he may be liable to the extent of the damages that a preexisting injury may have caused his victim which is independent of those suffered from his own negligent acts.
M.O.Idam
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