What’s the “Eggshell Plaintiff Rule”?
A plaintiff appealed from the trial court’s denial of his motion for new trial following a judgment in an action involving a vehicle collision. The plaintiff asserted that the trial court erred by failing to give the “eggshell plaintiff” instruction to the jury.
Background
In October 2018, the plaintiff owned and operated a transportation company and was driving a delivery van on Interstate 20 to pick up a load for his business. He was in heavy stop-and-go traffic and was at a complete stop with no one behind him when a vehicle slammed into the back of his van. He testified that the impact pushed his van into the vehicle in front of him, causing his knee to hit the gear box, his shoulder to hit the door, and a large cloud of smoke to come from the rear of his van. His air bag, however, didn’t deploy.
The vehicle that crashed into the plaintiff was owned by a die cutting business and driven by its employee. The driver admitted at trial that he caused the collision and that he received a citation for the accident.
The plaintiff testified at trial that he didn’t need help getting out of his van, declined an ambulance, and drove himself away from the scene. But a few hours later, he began experiencing headaches and pain in his lower back, knee, and shoulder, so he went to the emergency room. The ER doctor who evaluated him didn’t think that x-rays were warranted and discharged him without any additional testing. The doctor told the plaintiff to follow up with his primary care doctor and to come back if his symptoms worsened. A week later, he went to a chiropractor and, throughout his treatment, he reported that his pain was improving. In fact, by December 2018, he indicated that his improvement was 70%, and in January 2019, he said his percentage of improvement was 80%.
According to the plaintiff, his shoulder and knee pain resolved within a few months, but his back pain continued to get worse. He testified that he underwent treatment for the past five years as a result of the collision. The plaintiff admitted at trial, however, that he didn’t schedule any medical treatment or Telehealth visits from July 2019 to August 2021. He claimed he was deciding whether to have a procedure done, but couldn’t point to any records noting a potential procedure. According to the plaintiff, it might have been “a verbal conversation” with the doctor.
The plaintiff sued the business, the employee driver, and both their insurance companies for his injuries and damages. His deposition was taken in January 2021. In September—more than two years since his last treatment and eight months after his deposition was taken—he visited an orthopedic doctor. He testified that the plaintiff gave him a medical history that included treatment in June 2021 for kidney stones and procedures with a neurologist and treatment in 2015 for a prior car crash in which he injured his lower back and visited a chiropractor six times. At trial, the plaintiff denied any prior lower back injury and said the orthopedic doctor “made that up.”
Upon examination, the orthopedic doctor noted that the plaintiff had some restrictions in his lower back range of motion and tenderness over some discs in his lower back. The doctor reviewed an MRI taken in February 2019 (three months after the collision), and noted that it showed herniated discs at L5-S1 and L3-4, disc degeneration (arthritis) at L2-3, L3-4, and L4-5, and degenerative bone spurs. According to the doctor, the plaintiff’s degeneration or arthritis wasn’t caused by trauma and would continue to worsen and be painful without any trauma, and the bone spurs in the his back had begun to develop well before the crash. The doctor opined, however, that the collision caused the plaintiff’s disc herniations. The doctor recommended epidural injections or spinal fusion surgery.
A defense expert opined that the bulging discs depicted on the plaintiff’s MRI were caused by degenerative disc disease and not trauma, especially not a trauma that occurred only 3½ months before the MRI was taken. Specifically, he stated that the MRI showed that the plaintiff suffered from a chronic herniated disc at L5-S1 that had been there for years, and there was no evidence of any acute injury as a result of the motor vehicle collision at issue in this case.
According to the plaintiff, the cost of his treatments exceeded $100,000. Of that amount, $73,000 was incurred three years after the collision when he was treated by the orthopedic doctor.
The plaintiff further testified at trial that he was 45 years old and didn’t have any physical problems prior to the collision. He was very active, exercised, and went bowling. According to the plaintiff, he was unable to do those things without pain after the collision. He claimed that bending, sitting, standing for long periods, kneeling, and driving hurt his back. Though he admitted that he returned to his normal routine and work duties following the accident, he testified that his job ultimately suffered because he could no longer lift much weight or drive for long periods, limiting his ability to grow his business and take on new clients.
A jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in the amount of $50,000, and the trial court entered a final order and judgment based on the jury’s verdict. The plaintiff filed a motion for additur or new trial, which was denied. He then appealed.
What is the “Eggshell Plaintiff Rule” in Georgia?
The eggshell plaintiff rule, also known as “the thin skull rule,” is a common law doctrine that states a defendant is liable for the full extent of a plaintiff’s unforeseeable and uncommon reactions to the defendant’s negligence or intentional tort. Provided the injury was proximately caused by the defendant’s wrongful act, the defendant is responsible for the resulting harm—no matter how severe. This reflects the principle that a defendant must “take the victim as they find them.” As an example, if an individual has a medical condition that causes her to have brittle bones and she suffers a severe injury in an accident caused by someone else, the defendant is fully liable for the harm, even if most people wouldn’t have been seriously injured under the same circumstances.
Judge Ken Hodges of the Georgia Court of Appeals wrote that the plaintiff challenged the trial court’s charge to the jury, arguing that the trial court erred by failing to give his requested instruction on the eggshell plaintiff rule, which states that tortfeasors must take their victims as they find them. The judge said that this argument failed for a number of reasons.
For one, O.C.G.A. § 5-5-24(a) provides, in pertinent part, that “no party may complain of the giving or the failure to give an instruction to the jury unless he objects thereto before the jury returns its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection.”
The defendants pointed out that following the jury charge conference, the plaintiff stated that he had no objections to the jury instructions the court planned to read to the jury. And, he never took exception to the charges after they were read to the jury. Though the plaintiff’s counsel voiced some objection during the charge conference, objections to charges must be made after the jury is charged and before the verdict. Objections made at charging conferences before the charge is given don’t preserve charging issues for appellate review.
Because the plaintiff failed to object to the court’s charge as given, the Court of Appeals needed only review the trial court’s instructions to determine whether the court made a substantial error in the charge that was harmful as a matter of law. Judge Hodges and the panel found that it didn’t. Without citing any legal authority, the plaintiff requested the following charge:
I charge you members of the jury that the defendants in this case took plaintiff as they found him. That is, the fact that the plaintiff may have had certain preexisting conditions or disabilities, which combined with the negligent acts, if any, of the defendants caused the plaintiff’s injury would not absolve the defendant(s) of liability if you should find that defendant(s) was negligent and that such negligence was a contributing cause of the plaintiff’s injury.
The trial court instructed the jury on proximate cause and, after hearing the plaintiff’s argument regarding his proposed instruction during the charge conference, gave a modified jury instruction on the aggravation of a preexisting condition as follows:
If you should find that, at the time of the incident, the plaintiff has any physical condition, ailment, or disease that was becoming apparent, was apparent or dormant, or was dormant, and if you should find that the plaintiff received an injury as a result of the negligence of the defendant, and that the injury resulted in any aggravation of a preexisting physical condition, then the plaintiff could recover damages for the aggravation of the preexisting physical condition.
Based on the court’s instructions to the jury, the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court’s failure to charge the plaintiff’ requested instruction wasn’t so substantially or necessarily harmful as to warrant review when no exception was taken. Thomas v. Accurate Steel Rule Cutting Die, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 207, 2025 LX 79796 (Ga. App. May 23, 2025).
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