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Remoteness of Damage: Egg-shell" skull rule - Coggle Diagram
Remoteness of Damage: Egg-shell" skull rule
"Egg-shell" or "thin-kull" rule: the tortfeasor takes his victim as he finds him. It is no asnwer to C's claim for damages that he would have suffered less injury "if he had not had an unusually thin skull or an unusually weak heart." Dulieu v White [1901]
Smith v Leech Brain & Co
- Smith v Leech Brain & Co
C's husband splashed on lip at work, with molten metal
He had precancerous condition in lips: developed cancerand died from it
D liable: even though only foreseeable injury was splash and burn, C was "thin skill" individual
- Robinson v Post Office [1974]:
C, employee of D, slipped on oily ladder and cut shin
Doctor gave him anti-tetanus injection, to which C was allergic
As a result, he contracted encephalitis (inflammation of brain)
D liable for original injury and encephalitis—"
the principle that a defendant must take the plaintiff as he finds him involves that if a wrongdoer ought reasonably to foresee that as a result of his wrongful act the victim may require medical treatment he is...liable for the consequences",
per Orr LJ
If doctor was aware that treatment was allergic to treatment, probably wound have amounted to a novus actus
Egg-Shell skull rule applies to cases of nervous shock
Even if C has an "egg-shell personality" predisposing development of psychiatric or neurological illness
Page v Smith [1959]
- C in car crash, negligently caused by D
C's car damaged, but he was physically unhurt
Accident causes re-activation of chronic fatigue syndrome (myalgic encephalomyelitis, M.E)
, which he had some years before
HoL held that
where physical injury was reasonably foreseeable, there was no distinction to be drawn between non-physical damage and traditional personal injuries
—if physical damage to C is foreseeable, full extent of C's damage is recoverable
The “Scope of Duty” Approach
Modern cases shift focus from simply asking “Was the damage foreseeable?” to asking “Was this kind of loss within the scope of the duty the defendant owed the claimant?”
🔸 Case Example: Caparo Industries plc v Dickman [1990]
Caparo (investors) sued auditors after relying on financial statements to buy shares.
Held: Auditors owed a duty to the company, not to investors making investment decisions.
Reason: The purpose of the audit was not to guide investor conduct — so loss from reliance on it fell outside the scope of the duty.
Policy factor: Avoid opening the floodgates to unlimited liability to the investing public.
Lord Hoffmann in Kuwait Airways v Iraqi Airways [2002]
“One is never simply liable; one is always liable for something...”
Emphasises that liability must be defined in terms of its consequences — and courts draw that line using both legal reasoning and policy discretion.
Even where causation in fact is present, remoteness limits what losses are legally recoverable, often based on public interest concerns.
Spartan Steel v Martin & Co [1973]
Claim for economic loss due to power cut caused by D’s negligence.
Court allowed physical damage + consequential loss, but not pure economic loss (lost profits on further production).
Rationale: Policy-based control mechanism to limit the scope of liability.
Courts acknowledge that causation, breach and remoteness are overlapping questions, especially in complex negligence cases
Lord Hoffman (dictum) in Kuwait Airlines:
"One cannot separate questions of liability from questions of causation. They are inextricably connected."