Talk:Crumbling skull rule

Co-ordinate with Eggshell skull

As this article is closely linked with the thin skull rule, future edits to that article may require edits here so that it does not fal out of step.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 18:00, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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I reverted this. The previous link to canlii was a stable link. It will not change. There is no need to archive it. Also the archive page, has been taken down because of a copyright complaint.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 17:56, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Well established?

The article purports that this "Crumbling skull" rule is "well-established" in "some tort law systems." It offers no citation for this claim, and indeed the first citation for this "crumbling skull" doctrine at all is a primary source from 1993, ironically where the court choses not to entertain such a doctrine. As pointed out by another editor, the term appears extremely scarcely in the established literature on the subject, entirely non-existent before the 1990s. I can't find any court decisions in the US actually applying this doctrine. The article currently offers no indications or sources on which, if any, tort law systems do recognize this doctrine, and what qualifies this article as "Well Established." I'll be removing these WP:WEASELWORDS

After some research it also seems that this rule, when applicable at all, applies mostly to Canada. It seems US courts, and, to the extent my brief research covers, other tort law jurisdictions don't recognize such a doctrine. Anecdotally, I've never heard of this doctrine myself in US law. Query if this article should be tailored specifically to Canadian law?

In any event I'm making some edits to reflect the actual scholarship on the topic, where it exists. Tagging User:BeastyVenus, perhaps your comments on the validity of this doctrine would be better documented on the talk page than on the article itself. BabbleOnto (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

BabbleOnto deleted a cited correction that documented the actual origin of the term “crumbling skull.” The edit I submitted stated clearly and specifically that the phrase does not appear in any reported case, legal textbook, or tort restatement before Athey v. Leonati, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 458. That was not opinion. It was the product of targeted legal research across Westlaw, Lexis, and CanLII. I also confirmed zero usage in the foundational tort treatises: Prosser & Keeton (1984), Fleming (1992), and Linden (1993). These are authoritative texts. The absence of the phrase across all of these confirms the historical fact: the term was not used in the law until 1996, when Justice Major introduced it in Athey. It was invented in that moment not inherited.

BabbleOnto removed this correction without offering a single counter-source. He replaced it with the claim that the “crumbling skull rule” is a well-established legal doctrine. He did not provide any pre-1996 citation. He did not produce a single case, article, restatement, or treatise to support that claim. He fabricated doctrinal status by inserting a generalization and removed the one line that actually documented the historical record. He also claimed he was “removing vandalism.” That’s false. There was no vandalism. There was research. There was citation. He chose to replace fact with presumption.

In his edit summary, BabbleOnto also wrote that he was “changing context to better reflect sources.” No new sources were added. He reflected nothing but his own interpretation. The original correction contained more verifiable legal sourcing than the entire rest of the article. His version contained none. He retained the heading I added. He kept the flow. He preserved the structure but he erased the sentence that tells the truth about the term’s origin. He didn’t just undo the edit. He used it while removing the part that mattered. That’s not collaborative editing. That’s suppression.

He also inserted a claim that the rule is “primarily used in the field of Indigenous Peoples litigation in the context of residential schools.” This is not supported by any source dated prior to 1996. There is no legal case, no textbook, no legal article, no government document, no court ruling that uses the phrase “crumbling skull” in connection with Indigenous litigation before Justice Major coined the term in Athey.

The only document even remotely related the Assembly of First Nations report he seems to imply was published in 2009, long after the term’s invention. That report doesn’t say the term existed before. It only references how courts used the concept post-Athey.

What BabbleOnto did was retroactively attach cultural trauma to a term that didn’t exist at the time, in order to justify deleting the historical truth. He didn’t just remove facts. He replaced them with narrative fiction and labeled it doctrine. That is not verifiable and is historically incorrect.

Wikipedia’s core policies are not optional. WP:V requires that all material be verifiable. I brought sources. WP:NOR prohibits editors from inventing historical claims without documentation. He inserted an unverified status for a term that didn’t exist. WP:NPOV explains that editors not present disputed material as fact. He presented a rhetorical invention as settled doctrine. Everything he did contradicts policy. Everything I submitted followed it.

The sentence he removed must be restored: “The term ‘crumbling skull’ does not appear in any reported decision, textbook, or restatement prior to its invention in Athey v. Leonati, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 458.”

That statement is accurate, sourced, and supported. It reflects what the legal record actually shows. There is no valid reason for its removal. If BabbleOnto or any other editor wants to challenge it, they must provide a specific, dated source that predates Athey and uses the phrase “crumbling skull.” If they cannot do that, then the edit must be reinstated without obstruction.

The term ‘crumbling skull’ does not appear in any reported decision, textbook, or restatement prior to its invention in Athey v. Leonati, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 458.”

That sentence is accurate, sourced, and supported. It reflects what the legal record actually shows. There is no valid reason for its removal. If BabbleOnto or any other editor wants to challenge it, they must provide a specific, dated source that predates Athey and uses the phrase “crumbling skull.” If they cannot do that, then the edit must be reinstated without obstruction.

He removed citation and inserted a false historical narrative. He erased a documented timeline and replaced it with unverified commentary. What he did is a direct violation of Wikipedia policy. Labeling truth as graffiti is GARBAGE! — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeastyVenus (talk • contribs) 16:10, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

The term “crumbling skull” does not appear in any reported legal decision, tort textbook, or common-law restatement prior to its introduction in Athey v. Leonati, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 458. Comprehensive searches of Westlaw, Lexis, and CanLII legal databases, as well as authoritative secondary sources including Prosser & Keeton on Torts (1984), Fleming (1992), and Linden (1993), return zero results for the phrase before 1996.

The term was coined by Justice Major in Athey as a rhetorical contrast to the thin skull rule and has no documented usage in Canadian, American, English, or Australian case law prior to that decision. As such, the phrase is not a pre-existing common-law doctrine, but a post-1996 label created by the court itself.

Claims that the “crumbling skull rule” was “well-established” or “primarily used in Indigenous Peoples litigation in the context of residential schools” are not supported by historical sources. The only citation added in support of this claim refers to a 2009 report by the Assembly of First Nations, published thirteen years after the term’s invention, and it does not assert that the term was in legal use prior to Athey. There is no record of the phrase being used in any litigation Indigenous or otherwise before 1996. Therefore, attempts to retroactively associate the term with residential school jurisprudence are chronologically and legally inaccurate.

Presenting “crumbling skull” as a settled doctrine before 1996 misrepresents its origin and violates the standards of historical legal accuracy. Unless and until a source is produced that uses the term in a legal or doctrinal context prior to 1996, this phrase must be treated as a modern rhetorical construct, not a longstanding rule.

Reliance on artificial intelligence systems such as Google search, ChatGPT, or other large language models to “verify” the legal standing of the crumbling skull rule is fundamentally flawed. These systems are not primary sources of law; they are pattern-based outputs trained on vast amounts of publicly available content including unsourced blogs, user-submitted legal summaries, secondary commentary, and, often, unverified Wikipedia entries. When repeated across platforms, even a historically inaccurate claim can begin to appear legitimate, not because it is true, but because it has been cited and copied widely.

This is known as circular sourcing or citation laundering where misinformation reinforces itself through repetition rather than evidence. The existence of articles or AI-generated answers calling the crumbling skull rule a doctrine does not prove it was one. It only proves that a rhetorical phrase, coined in 1996, has been mischaracterized over time and passed off as historical fact. Legal truth requires verifiable, dated sources. AI is a TOOL. Not a fact finder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeastyVenus (talk • contribs) 16:24, 23 December 2025 (UTC)