Smith v Leech Brain & Co Ltd

Ratio Decidendi

Facts

A worker was burned on the lip by molten metal due to his employer's negligence. The burn was minor, but it triggered cancer in the pre-malignant condition of his lip. He died of cancer three years later.

Judgment Summary

Lord Parker CJ held that the decision in The Wagon Mound (No 1) had not abolished the long-established 'thin skull' rule, and that the employers were liable for the death of their workman. The correct question was not whether the employers could have foreseen that a burn would develop into cancer and cause death, but whether they could reasonably foresee the type of injury the man suffered — namely a burn. Because a burn was foreseeable, and was negligently caused by molten metal splashing onto his lip, the employers were liable for the full extent of the harm that followed, including the cancer that developed in the pre-malignant tissue of his lip and his death some three years later. A tortfeasor must take the victim as they find them; the fact that the ultimate consequences were graver than could have been foreseen, because of the victim's pre-existing susceptibility, does not reduce liability. The case established that the thin skull rule survives, and sits alongside, the Wagon Mound foreseeability-of-type test — though damages were reduced to reflect the chance that the deceased might have developed cancer in any event.

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Subsequent Treatment