Chapter Five: Proximate Cause

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Chapter Five Proximate Cause
Duty Breach Causation Defendants act must be
both An actual cause, or cause in fact of the
plaintiffs injury And a proximate cause of the
injury. Damages
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Proximate Cause An Approach

• What category of cases does your case fall into?
• Unforeseen Harm
• Unforeseen Manner
• Unforeseen Plaintiff
• What rule -- doctrine -- applies to this
  particular category?
• Apply the rule you settle on to the facts you
  have.

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Unexpected Harm
1. Fact Pattern 1 the eggshell skull
plaintiff 2. Rule Liable for the full extent
of the harm, even if it is unforeseeable 3.
Application Characterize the defendants acts
as creating a foreseeable risk of physical
injury to this plaintiff, physical injury
occurs, the extent of the harm is then
irrelevant.
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An approach
1. Fact Pattern 2 the unexpected harm, but not
eggshell skull 2. Rule A division in
authority Polemis all harm that is directly
caused Wagon Mound I liability limited to what
was foreseeable 3. Application Under the
Polemis approach Is the causation
direct. Under the WM approach Characterize
the foreseeable risk broadly, if you are the
plaintiff narrowly, if you are the defendant.
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Unexpected Harm

• Advantage of Wagon Mound approach
• Not arbitrary
• Liability is tied to culpability

• Problems with Wagon Mound approach
• Can you reconcile the egg shell skull rule?
• What must be foreseeable and how foreseeable
  must it be?

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Ch. V Proximate Cause The Texas City Disaster
Nearby ships, high risk of fire damage
Docks, small but foreseeable risk of fire damage
People and property near the docks
People and property several miles from the
docks, no foreseeable risk from fire
People whose jobs were destroyed
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Unexpected Harm
Page 411, Note 10 Berry v Sugar Notch Borough
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Unexpected Harm

• 1) Fact Pattern 3 The entirely different
  hazard.
• Examples Berry v Sugar Notch Borough (p. 411,
  n.10)
• Unforeseeably flammable rat poison near coffee
  burner (p. 432, n.9)
• The rule a negligent actor is responsible only
  for harm the risk of which was increased by the
  negligent aspect of his conduct
• Restatement No liability where harm arises
  from an entirely different hazard than that
  created by the defendants negligence.
• 3) Application Driving at an unsafe speed does
  not increase the risk that a tree branch will
  fall on you. Placing rat poison where someone
  might drink it does not increase the risk that it
  will catch fire.

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Unexpected Harm
Fact Pattern 4 Secondary Harms Note 8, p.
403
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Unexpected Harm
Fact Pattern 4 Secondary Harms Restatement
(Second) of Torts 457 Additional Harm Resulting
From Efforts to Mitigate Harm Caused by
Negligence If the negligent actor is liable
for another's bodily injury, he is also subject
to liability for any additional bodily harm
resulting from normal efforts of third persons in
rendering aid which the other's injury reasonably
requires, irrespective of whether such acts are
done in a proper or a negligent manner.
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Unexpected Harm
Fact Pattern 4 Secondary Harms 443 Normal
Intervening Force The intervention of a force
which is a normal consequence of a situation
created by the actor's negligent conduct is not a
superseding cause of harm which such conduct has
been a substantial factor in bringing about.
Comment b. "Normal" consequences. The word
"normal" is not used in this Section in the sense
of what is usual, customary, foreseeable, or to
be expected. It denotes rather the antithesis of
abnormal, of extraordinary. It means that the
court or jury, looking at the matter after the
event, and therefore knowing the situation which
existed when the new force intervened, does not
regard its intervention as so extraordinary as to
fall outside of the class of normal events.
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Unexpected Harm
1. Fact Pattern 4 Secondary Harms 2. Rule the
normal efforts test the normal consequences
test 3. Application Medical negligence is a
normal consequence Limit is probably pretty
close to the entirely different hazard rule
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Chapter Five Proximate Cause An Approach

• What category of cases does your case fall into?
• Unexpected Harm
• Entirely different hazard
• Sugar Notch Railway not a substantial factor
• Unexpected Harm / Eggshell skull
• Benn all results
• Unexpected Harm/ Other cases
• Wagon Mound only foreseeable results
• Polemis all direct results
• Secondary Harm
• Normal consequence test

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Unexpected Harm
1. Fact Pattern 4 Secondary Harms 2. Rule the
normal efforts test the normal consequences
test a hindsight approach! 3.
Application Medical negligence is a normal
consequence Limit is probably pretty close to
the entirely different hazard rule
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Unexpected Manner
1. Fact Pattern 5 Intervening causes
McLaughlin v. Mine Safety Appliance 2. Rule?
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Unexpected Manner
1. Fact Pattern 5 Intervening causes
McLaughlin v. Mine Safety Appliance 2. Rule
Restatement 442B Intervening Force Causing Same
Harm as That Risked by Actor's Conduct
Where the negligent conduct of the actor creates
or increases the risk of a particular harm and is
a substantial factor in causing that harm, the
fact that the harm is brought about through the
intervention of another force does not relieve
the actor of liability, except where the harm is
intentionally caused by a third person and is not
within the scope of the risk created by the
actor's conduct.
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Unexpected Manner
1. Fact Pattern 5 Intervening causes
McLaughlin v. Mine Safety Appliance 2. Rule
Restatement 435 Foreseeability of Harm or
Manner of Its Occurrence (1) If the actor's
conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about
harm to another, the fact that the actor neither
foresaw nor should have foreseen the extent of
the harm or the manner in which it occurred does
not prevent him from being liable. (2) The
actor's conduct may be held not to be a legal
cause of harm to another where after the event
and looking back from the harm to the actor's
negligent conduct, it appears to the court highly
extraordinary that it should have brought about
the harm.
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Unexpected Plaintiff
1. Fact Pattern 6 the unforeseeable
plaintiff 2. Rule A split Cardozo no duty to
unforeseeable plaintiffs Andrews in
hindsight 3. Application Cardozo approach
would a reasonable person in defendants
position have foreseen a risk of harm to the
plaintiff? Andrews approach look at what
happened in hindsight
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Unexpected Harm
In re Kinsman (p. 431) Wagon Mound simply
applies the principle which excludes liability
where the injury sprang from a hazard different
from that which was improperly risked We see
no reason why an actor engaging in conduct which
entails a large risk of small damage and a small
risk of other and greater damage of the same
general sort and to the same class of persons
should be relieved of responsibility for the
latter simply because the chance of its
occurrence, if viewed alone, may not have been
large enough to require the exercise of care.
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Chapter Five Proximate Cause Review
The problem (focusing on the employer, and the
initial injury) Duty Employers have a duty to
provide a safe workplace (special
relationship) Breach What is the untaken
precaution? Why was it negligence to fail to
take it? Causation Actual cause but-for the
defendants negligence, would the accident have
occurred? Proximate cause Did something
unexpected occur? Damage, or injury Physical
injury
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Chapter Five Proximate Cause
Thin skull plaintiffs Liable for all harm,
limited by cause in fact Secondary harm Liable
for natural or normal consequences defined
in hindsight, but must be a substantial
factor Set stage cases Wagon Mound only
liable for foreseeable (Polemis) type of
harm (Wagon Mound) Polemis liable for all harm
that directly (Kinsman) results Kinsman same
sort of harm, same physical forces, same class
of persons. Not liable if entirely different
hazard Intervening cause Restatement liable
if the type of harm threatened by cases Ds
negligence occurs, even if the manner is
unexpected Not liable if intentionally
caused, unless those acts were foreseeable
(and there was a duty!)
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Does the defendants liability extend 1) only
to the foreseeable results of his actions, and no
further? Palsgraf, Wagon Mound 2) to all the
results of his actions, foreseeable or
not? Eggshell skull rule 3) to some, but not
all of the unforeseeable consequences of his
actions? -- Polemis rule all results directly
caused -- not to entirely different
hazards --Secondary harm cases limited to the
normal consequences, and only where a
substantial factor -- Andrews, hindsight
approach