united-kingdom
Is &quot;the Eggshell Rule&quot; applicable in England?
<p>I understand that, in the USA, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv5lqcG7omM" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eggshell Rule</a> stipulates that defendants must take victims as they find them.</p>
<p>Is the same true in England?</p>

<p>Yes.</p>
<p>The principle caselaw is <em>R v Hayward (1908) 21 Cox 692</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>A husband and wife had an argument that led to the husband chasing his wife out into the street.  The wife collapsed during this altercation and died.  Whist the husband did not physically touch her, he did shout threats at her.  The wife was found to have been suffering from an abnormality of the thyroid gland that neither was aware of that meant that fright or shock could cause death if combined with physical exertion.  The husband was charged with manslaughter.</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>The husband was found guilty of manslaughter.  No actual proof of violence was necessary as long as the defendant’s unlawful act, which was the threat of violence, caused her fright leading to her death.  <strong>The criminal law acknowledges that an assailant must take their victim as they find them...</strong> <a href="https://www.lawteacher.net/cases/r-v-hayward.php" rel="noreferrer">Source</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>And...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The defendant chased his wife out of the house shouting threats at her. She collapsed and died. He did not physically touch her. She was suffering from a rare thyroid condition which could lead to death where physical exertion was accompanied by fright and panic. Both the defendant and his wife were unaware she had this condition.</p>
<p>Held:</p>
<p>The defendant was liable for constructive manslaughter as his unlawful act (assault) caused death. The egg shell (thin) skull rule applied. He was therefore fully liable despite the fact an ordinary person of reasonable fortitude would not have died in such circumstances... <a href="http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/R-v-Hayward.php" rel="noreferrer">Source</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Allow me to cite authoritative English law textbooks, rather than Wikipedia or unsubstantiated websites.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>      Another area in which evaluative judgements of this sort are made concerns the question
of remoteness: should a defendant be liable for a greater extent of damage than he
could reasonably have foreseen would occur as a result of his negligence? The courts have
held that the <em>extent of damage</em> need not have been foreseeable as long as there was foreseeability
of the <em>kind of damage</em> sustained by the claimant. An illustration is the so-called ‘eggshell
skull’ principle, which grants recovery in full to a claimant who is unusually vulnerable
or susceptible to the consequences of a particular kind of injury. An employee who sustains
a life-threatening disease when an accident at work triggers a condition that would otherwise
have lain dormant will recover damages in full for the consequences of the illness, even
though the accident itself was comparatively minor and its consequences could not have
been predicted.<sup>47</sup> This outcome can be seen as striking a compromise between the idea that
the extent of the defendant’s legal liability should be strictly limited to his degree of personal
responsibility and the idea that he should be made fully liable for the consequences,
in terms of the increased risk of harm to others, of his behaviour. It is significant that the
courts yet again treat this issue of remoteness differently according to whether injury to the
person or interference with economic interests is at stake, with the latter being accorded
less extensive protection.<sup>48</sup></p>
<p>47 <em>Smith v. Leech, Brain &amp; Co. Ltd</em> [1962] 2 QB 405.<br />
48 See below, ch. 5, sec. 3(E)–(F).</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>Markesinis and Deakin's Tort Law</em> (2019, 8 edition, OUP), p. 92.</p>
<blockquote>
<h3>(D) Extent of the damage</h3>
<p><strong>Personal injury</strong> Before <em>The Wagon Mound</em> was decided, it was well established that,
in relation to personal injury, the defendant had to ‘take the claimant as he found him’.
This meant that the victim could claim damages for the entire injury to his person, even though, owing to some special bodily sensitivity, it was greater than would have been
suffered by the ordinary individual. Thus, a haemophiliac,144 or an extreme neurotic,145
who sustains greater injury than the ordinary person, can recover the full extent of their
damage, even though the defendant could not have foreseen such extensive injury. The
courts have held that <em>The Wagon Mound</em> has not affected this principle, commonly
termed the ‘egg-shell skull’ rule. <em>Smith v Leech Brain &amp; Co Ltd</em>146 is illustrative:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A negligently inflicted burn on C’s lip resulted in him dying of cancer. The tissues in his lip
in which the cancer developed were in a premalignant condition at the time when the burn
occurred. Ds were held liable for the damage resulting from the death.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a similar way, in <em>Robinson v Post Office</em>,147 the defendants carelessly lacerated
the claimant’s leg. A doctor’s subsequent anti-tetanus injection caused encephalitis
because the claimant was allergic to the injected serum. The defendants were held
liable.148</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>144 <em>Bidwell v Briant</em> (1956) Times, 9 May.<br />
145 <em>Love v Port of London Authority</em> [1959] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 541; <em>Malcolm v Broadhurst</em> [1970] 3 All ER 508;
<em>Brice v Brown</em> [1984] 1 All ER 997.<br />
146 [1962] 2 QB 405. 147 [1974] 2 All ER 737.
148 See also <em>Environment Agency v Ellis</em> [2009] PIQR P5 (C had a degenerative spinal condition prior to the accident for which D was responsible: according to May LJ, at [36], this was akin to an egg-shell skull).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Christian Witting, <em>Street on Torts</em> (2021, 16 edn, OUP), p. 190-1.</p>
