Court of Appeals of Indiana Finds “Eggshell Plaintiff” Doctrine Doesn’t Apply to Murder & Voluntary Manslaughter Cases

The “eggshell plaintiff” or “eggshell skull” doctrine generally “holds that holds that a defendant’s liability in a tort claim is not mitigated by a plaintiff’s unforeseeable, pre-existing susceptibility to injury.” But does the doctrine apply to a murder or voluntary manslaughter case? That was the question addressed by the Court of Appeals of Indiana in its recent opinion in Konkle v. State, 2024 WL 253306 (Ind. App. 2024).

In Konkle,

Zachariah David Konkle fought Michael Steele, and Steele died. Before the fight, Steele had an enlarged heart, 90% occlusion of his coronary arteries, and a history of prior heart attacks. Konkle did not know about Steele’s heart problems, yet the State charged him with murder. During trial, the sole issue was whether Konkle knowingly killed Steele, as the State conceded that the killing was not intentional. The State’s position was that Steele died because of asphyxiation caused by Konkle placing Steele in a headlock or lying on his chest and thus he was guilty of knowingly killing Steele. Konkle argued that Steele would not have died but for his preexisting heart problems of which he was unaware. Thus, he argued that he was guilty of a lesser-included offense, either reckless homicide or involuntary manslaughter, neither of which requires a knowing killing. There was evidence from pathologists and eyewitnesses supporting both the State’s and the defense’s theories.

During closing argument, the State, for the first time, contended the “eggshell victim rule” applied, which relieved the State of proving that Konkle knowingly killed Steele. The State argued that the eggshell-victim doctrine provides that the defendant takes the victim as they find them and that “if one throws a piece of chalk at a victim with an eggshell skull and the chalk strikes the victim and fractures his skull, the perpetrator would be guilty even if he didn’t intend to bring bodily harm.” The jury found Konkle guilty of the lesser-included offense of voluntary manslaughter.

In finding that this was reversible error, the Court of Appeals of Indiana found that

The State does not cite, nor can we locate, any Indiana cases where the eggshell-victim doctrine was applied to a murder or voluntary-manslaughter case to establish that the defendant knowingly or intentionally killed someone. A search of other jurisdictions doesn’t reveal many cases, but those we found support that the eggshell-victim doctrine doesn’t apply to murder or voluntary-manslaughter cases. As the Seventh Circuit has explained:

The eggshell-skull principle does not quite fit a case of intentional murder, for the murderer must intend his victim’s death and ordinarily this will presuppose some awareness of the likely consequences of his act. It is not murder to kill a person by a slight blow harmless to an ordinary person if you do not know the person is unusually vulnerable; there is even a presumption in Illinois that one who beats another with his bare fists does not intend to kill him….

The State misstated the law during closing, which constitutes misconduct.

-CM