Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

transferred malice

Malice directed to one person or object but instead harming another in the way intended for the first. °[IJf A shoots at B intending to kill him, but the shot actually kills C, this is held to be murder of C. So also if A throws a stone at one window and breaks another, it is held to be malicious damage to the window actually broken. This doctrine, which is known as the doctrine of transferred malice, applies only where the harm intended and the harm done are of the same kind. If A throws a stone at a human being and unintentionally breaks a window, he cannot be convicted of malicious damage to the window." John Salmond, Jurisprudence 382 (Glanville L. Williams ed., 10th ed. 1947).