Trick or Treat! Do you have a lawyer?

What is the color of albumin?

If your house has ever been egged on Halloween (or its evil twin, Mischief Night), you would know. It’s a slimy shade of egg white that inevitably becomes mixed with yellow streaks of egg yolk and a mosaic of eggshell shards. And it’s often impossible to remove.

Get out the power washer, hire a painter, get really angry; but think twice about taking the brats who did it to court.

The Halloween season of pranks and misdemeanors is upon us, and Baltimore attorney T. Wray McCurdy, for one, isn’t waiting for the phone to ring. Traditionally, the pagan holiday is a once-a-year opportunity to raise a little hell, he says. “It’s the night that people who aren’t exactly criminals go out and commit small crimes—the emphasis is on ‘small.’”

Shenanigans such as home eggings, soaped-up windows and trees festooned with toilet paper are “more annoying to the justice system than they are legal issues,” McCurdy says.

He remembers the case (not his) of an “egging victim that was asking for a paint job for their Ruxton home and the judge was taking a rather dim view of the whole thing. The judge basically said, ‘You’ve got homeowners insurance—use it.’”

Under the law, egging a house is considered malicious destruction of property. If charges are filed over an egging committed by kids under 18, the case goes to the juvenile division of the circuit court in the victim’s jurisdiction. “In Maryland, you’re liable for the first $10,000 in damage,” McCurdy says.

Settling the matter out of court “as far as the courts are concerned, would probably be the way to go, as long as it can be done in a peaceful manner,” he says.

In his experience, “slip-and-fall” lawsuits connected to Halloween are relatively rare, McCurdy says. And like the Ruxton egging case, they aren’t guaranteed winners. In July, a Baltimore County jury determined that in 2005, a Halethorpe woman dressed as a witch on Halloween was not liable when the mother of two trick-or-treaters fell on the woman’s property and broke her elbow.

Just the same, homeowners and landlords expecting company on All Hallows Eve should repair property defects that could cause an injury, says Irwin E. Weiss, a Towson personal injury lawyer. “Obviously, there’s an enhanced chance of injury because there are 10,000 kids coming to your house instead of one.” 

Safety is also a primary concern for Baltimore attorney Sherrie T. Howell. Even floors made slippery by exuberant apple bobbers are a potential hazard that could result in a lawsuit, she cautions.

Parents may be held liable if an egging goes wrong, Howell says. If, for example, “My child is with a group of 10- and 11-year-olds out trick-or-treating and your child is one in a group of 14- and 15-year-olds who think, ‘Yeah, let’s throw some eggs on the babies.’

“My child gets struck in the face and eggshell digs into her eye and her cornea gets scratched by an eggshell. Now your child is going to be charged with assault and battery and I’m going to demand that my daughter’s medical bills be paid,” Howell says.

“I might even sue you civilly because I had to miss time at work and stay home with the child who couldn’t stay home by herself or go to school,” she says. “Every parent has to be mindful to counsel their children about what is ‘too far.’”

Howell recalled one Halloween-related case she worked on: “One group of kids thought it would be cool to dare another group of kids to go into a vacant house and one of the kids fell. There were no serious injuries, but the parents were very concerned and angry and rightfully so.”

The case, though, didn’t go to court or mediation. “It ended up just being handled very informally,” Howell says. 

Stephanie Shapiro is a freelance writer based in Baltimore