The Earth As Eggshell Victim: A Global Perspective on Domestic Regulation

Abstract

In 1891, in a small schoolroom in Waukesha, Wisconsin, 12 year-old George Putney scuffled with 14 year-old Andrew Vosburg and kicked him in the shin. The kick would hardly have injured a healthy child; however, Vosburg was not healthy. The kick aggravated Vosburg's tibia infection, causing him serious injury. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin held George Putney liable for all the damages that followed, even though Putney did not know of Vosburg's weakened condition. In the now famous case of Vosburg v. Putney,' the Wisconsin Court enunciated the common law doctrine since known as the eggshell or rule: you take your victim as you find him. The thin skull rule is a productive starting point for a dialogue on the place of law in any effort to control (or reverse) the cumulative damage to the planet's ecosystem. Any such dialogue requires a global perspective that fuses international and domestic approaches to law.2 Environmental law must assess not only the level of assault against the earth, but also the risk of the planet's hypervulnerability to further injury. As in Vosburg v. Putney, some of the insult to the planet has been the result of unintended consequences, whose significance we are only now beginning to understand. The planet has become