Editing Negligence (section)

===Injury===
Even though there is breach of duty, and the cause of some injury to the defendant, a plaintiff may not recover unless he can prove that the defendant's breach caused a pecuniary injury.

As a general rule, plaintiffs in tort litigation can only recover damages if they prove both that they suffered a loss and that the loss was reasonably foreseeable to the defendant. When damages are not a necessary element of a tort claim, a plaintiff may prevail without demonstrating a financial injury, potentially recovering [[nominal damages]] along with any other remedy available under the law.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Blanchard |first1=Sadie |title=Nominal Damages as Vindication |journal=George Mason Law Review |date=2022 |volume=30 |page=228}}</ref>

Negligence is different in that the plaintiff must ordinarily prove a pecuniary loss in order to recover damages. In some cases, such as defamation per se, damages may be presumed. Recovery for non-pecuniary losses, such as emotional injury, are normally recoverable only if the plaintiff has also proved a pecuniary loss.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Carr |first1=Christopher |title=Measuring the Pecuniary Loss in Damages for Personal |journal=The Modern Law Review |date=May 1974 |volume=37 |issue=3 |page=341}}</ref> Examples of pecuniary loss include medical bills that result from an injury, or repair costs or loss of income due to property damage.

The damage may be physical, purely economic, both physical and economic (loss of earnings following a personal injury<ref>See, eg, {{cite AustLII|HCA|8|1977|litigants=Sharman v Evans |parallelcite=(1977) 138 [[Commonwealth Law Reports|CLR]] 563 |courtname=auto |date=}}.</ref>), or reputational (in a [[defamation]] case).

In English law, the right to claim for purely [[economic loss]] is limited to a number of "special" and "clearly defined circumstances", often related to the nature of the duty to the plaintiff as between clients and lawyers, financial advisers, and other professions where money is central to the consultative services.

[[Negligent infliction of emotional distress|Emotional distress]] has been recognized as an actionable tort. Generally, emotional distress damages had to be parasitic. That is, the plaintiff could recover for emotional distress caused by injury, but only if it accompanied a physical or pecuniary injury.

A claimant who has suffered only emotional distress and no pecuniary loss would not recover for negligence. However, courts have recently allowed recovery for a plaintiff to recover for purely emotional distress under certain circumstances. The state courts of [[California]] allowed recovery for emotional distress alone{{spaced ndash}}even in the absence of any physical injury, when the defendant physically injures a relative of the plaintiff, and the plaintiff witnesses it.<ref>See ''[[Dillon v. Legg]]'', 68 Cal. 2d 728 (1968) and ''[[Molien]] v. [[Kaiser Foundation|Kaiser Foundation Hospitals]]'', 27 Cal. 3d 916 (1980).</ref>

The eggshell skull rule is a legal doctrine upheld in some tort law systems, which holds that a tortfeasor is liable for the full extent of damage caused, even where the extent of the damage is due to the unforeseen frailty of the claimant. The eggshell skull rule was recently maintained in Australia in the case of ''Kavanagh v Akhtar''.<ref name="Kavanagh v Akhtar"/>