## Facts

- Beal struck Fetter and cracked Fetter’s skull.
- Fetter sued Beal for the battery and recovered monetary damages for the injury.
- After that first case ended, a piece (or part) of Fetter’s skull later came out of his head as a result of the same blow.
- Fetter filed a second lawsuit against Beal seeking additional damages for the later-developing injury, often described in later sources as framed as an action for mayhem.

## Issues

1. Whether a plaintiff who has already recovered damages for a battery may bring a second action for later-manifesting physical consequences arising from the same battery.
2. Whether the later expulsion or loss of part of the skull is a new cause of action (such as mayhem) or merely additional damage from the original tort that was merged into the first judgment.

## Decision

- The court held the second action was not maintainable.
- The later loss of part of the skull was treated as a consequence of the original battery, not a new, separately actionable wrong for purposes of obtaining additional damages.
- Because Fetter had already recovered once for the same assault and battery, the prior recovery barred a second suit based on the same underlying act (judgment for Beal in the second action).
- The case is also cited in later commentary for treating “loss of the skull” as the kind of injury associated with mayhem, even though that characterization could not avoid the bar created by the earlier recovery.

## Legal Principles

- A single tortious act causing personal injury gives rise to one claim for damages; the plaintiff must seek compensation in one action for all harm that has occurred and for harm that may reasonably be expected to occur from that act.
- After a final judgment and recovery for a tort, the plaintiff’s claim is merged into the judgment, and a later suit seeking more damages from the same wrongful act is barred (former recovery / merger and bar).
- Later worsening of the same injury, without a new wrongful act, does not create a fresh cause of action permitting a second recovery.
- Re-labeling the later effects of the same battery under a different form of action (such as mayhem) does not avoid the bar where the damages still arise from the same original blow.

## Conclusion

Fetter v. Beal holds that once a plaintiff has recovered damages for a battery, he cannot sue again when additional consequences of that same injury appear later; the first recovery exhausts the claim arising from the defendant’s single wrongful act, requiring all past and future damages from that act to be pursued in the initial case.


Fetter v. Beal, 91 Eng. Rep. 1122 (1698)