Man in car dies after hit-and-run
An elderly man who was the passenger in a car on Pierre-Dupuy Avenue Friday night has died after a hit-and-run: the car he was in wasn’t badly damaged by the collision, but he suffered a heart attack.
Interesting legal point. If caught, would the other driver be charged with involuntary manslaughter, given that it wasn’t an injury directly caused by the crash that killed him?
thomas 09:31 on 2020-09-26 Permalink
Possibly. Is there a civil law equivalent of the “eggshell skull rule”?
david100 13:06 on 2020-09-26 Permalink
Yeah, thin skull rule applies in Quebec under Art. 1611 C.c.Q.
dwgs 13:48 on 2020-09-26 Permalink
Wow, is there really a thin skull rule? Because if there is it’s probably due to the death of a neighbour of mine in my hometown. Got into a fight and fractured his skull when he was knocked to the ground.
david100 15:18 on 2020-09-26 Permalink
It’s the old eggshell plaintiff rule for calculating civil damages – goes way back. Basically, the idea is that the court takes the plaintiff as he was at the time of the tort. So, if I shove you to the ground and that action shatters every bone in your body because of some brittle bone condition, even if I couldn’t have reasonably expected that you’d have that brittle bone condition, you can still recover damages for those injuries.
For some reason, it’s called the thin skull rule in Canada and Quebec – very likely, as you say, because the precedent setting Canadian case involved someone with a thin skull.
Ian 14:00 on 2020-09-27 Permalink
@dwgs one-punch deaths are more common than you might think.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38992393