Mayhem

In one line

Mayhem is an aggravated battery which deprives a person of a part of the body useful in defending himself.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: mayhem, sometimes spelled maim, is a form of trespass to the person consisting of a bodily injury that deprives the plaintiff of the use of a member which would be useful to him in fighting or in defending himself; it originated as a distinct wrong because such an injury weakened the King's fighting strength, and in modern law it is treated as an aggravated battery, the corresponding penal provision in India being the definition of grievous hurt.

The origin of the wrong

Mayhem is a very old head of liability and its history explains its odd shape. In medieval England the King was entitled to the military service of his subjects, and an injury that made a man less able to fight was therefore a wrong to the King as well as to the man. Depriving him of a hand, a finger, an eye or a front tooth was mayhem; injuries that disfigured without weakening, such as cutting off an ear or the nose, were not.

That distinction between what weakens and what merely disfigures is what students are expected to know, and it is also why the category has practically disappeared: modern law compensates disfigurement as readily as disablement.

The position in modern law

In tort, mayhem is not a separate cause of action in India. A plaintiff sues for battery, and the maiming goes to the seriousness of the wrong and therefore to the damages. What survives of mayhem is the idea that some batteries are far graver than others.

In the penal law, the corresponding idea is grievous hurt. Section 116 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 designates the kinds of hurt that are grievous, and the list is recognisably descended from mayhem: emasculation, permanent privation of the sight of either eye, permanent privation of the hearing of either ear, privation of any member or joint, destruction or permanent impairing of the powers of any member or joint, permanent disfiguration of the head or face, fracture or dislocation of a bone or tooth, and any hurt which endangers life or which causes the sufferer to be during the space of fifteen days in severe bodily pain or unable to follow his ordinary pursuits.

Note that permanent disfiguration of the head or face is in the list. The penal law, unlike the old law of mayhem, does not require the injury to weaken the victim's ability to fight.

Where the idea still does real work

Damages. The measure of general damages for personal injury turns on the nature and permanence of the disability, and a maiming injury attracts a far larger award. Chapter [Kinds of Damages] and, for accident claims, chapter [Computing Just Compensation] work out how a court arrives at the figure.