Few doctrines in tort law generate more disagreement at trial than the eggshell plaintiff rule, also known as the thin skull rule. The principle is well established: a defendant whose negligence causes injury cannot avoid liability due to the plaintiff’s preexisting condition, even if that condition made the resulting harm substantially worse than what an […]
Serious personal injury litigation presents an unusual causation problem. A defendant’s negligence may cause catastrophic injuries that require emergency medical treatment, but the plaintiff’s condition subsequently worsens because of alleged medical negligence. The resulting litigation no longer concerns a single negligent act but the allocation of responsibility to the successive acts of negligence that may […]
Institutional liability cases frequently ask the question of whether the organization knew—or reasonably should have known—that a dangerous condition, operational failure, or systemic deficiency existed before the injury at issue occurred. In that context, prior incidents may become significant due to the fact that they demonstrate how the risk was neither an isolated event nor […]
Medical error, even when catastrophic, does not ordinarily implicate the Constitution. The Constitution does not guarantee error-free medical care, nor does it convert malpractice into a civil-rights violation. Courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to constitutionalize negligence-based claims, regardless of severity. The threshold question is not whether care was substandard, tragic, or preventable. It is whether […]
Catastrophic injury litigation is not personal injury law applied to more serious harm. It is a distinct category of civil practice governed by different evidentiary demands, litigation posture, and professional obligations. The distinction is not one of degree, but of kind. Personal injury law addresses a broad range of harms, many of which involve recovery, […]