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, the extent of the harm
is then irrelevant
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Unexpected Harm
1. Fact Pattern 2 the unexpected type of
harm 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 WM approach
Characterize the foreseeable risk broadly, if you
are the plaintiff narrowly, if you are the
defendant. Under the Polemis approach Is the
causation direct.
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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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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)
• Child drops gun on foot. Unforeseeably flammable
  rat poison near coffee burner.
• The rule p. 432 n.9 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.

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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 becaue the chance of its
occurrence, if viewed alone, may not have been
large enough to require the exercise of care.
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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
People whose jobs were destroyed
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Unexpected Harm
1. Fact Pattern 2 the unexpected type of
harm 2. Rule A division in authority Polemis
all harm that is directly caused Wagon Mound I
liability limited to what was foreseeable In re
Kinsman liable if same sort of harm, from same
general forces, to same class of people 3.
Application Under the WM approach
Characterize the foreseeable risk broadly, if you
are the plaintiff narrowly, if you are the
defendant. Under the Polemis approach Is the
causation direct. Under Kinsman, argue about
whether the risk was increased by the negligence
aspect of the defendants conduct if so, is it
the same harm, same forces, same people.
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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 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
According to Justice Cardozo, in Palsgraf, which
view is correct Defendant has been negligent,
and his negligence has in fact caused harm.
Should his liability extend 1) to the
foreseeable results of his actions, and no
further? 2) to all the results of his actions,
foreseeable or not? 3) to some, but not all of
the unforeseeable consequences of his actions?
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Unexpected Plaintiff
According to Justice Cardozo, in Palsgraf, which
view is correct Defendant has been negligent,
and his negligence has in fact caused harm.
Should his liability extend 1) to the
foreseeable results of his actions, and no
further? Cardozo Plaintiff must be foreseeable,
or there is no duty. Does not reach question of
whether the harm must also be foreseeable. 2)
to all the results of his actions, foreseeable or
not? 3) to some, but not all of the
unforeseeable consequences of his actions?
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Unexpected Plaintiff

• According to Justice Andrews, in Palsgraf, which
  view is correct
• Defendant has been negligent, and his negligence
  has in fact caused harm. Should his liability
  extend
• 1) to the foreseeable results of his actions, and
  no further?
• 2) to all the results of his actions, foreseeable
  or not?
• 3) to some, but not all of the unforeseeable
  consequences of his actions?

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Unexpected Plaintiff

• According to Justice Andrews, in Palsgraf, which
  view is correct
• Defendant has been negligent, and his negligence
  has in fact caused harm. Should his liability
  extend
• 1) to the foreseeable results of his actions, and
  no further?
• 2) to all the results of his actions, foreseeable
  or not?
• 3) to some, but not all of the unforeseeable
  consequences of his actions?
• In hindsight, were the results too attenuated
  from the original negligence to hold the
  defendant liable, considering various factors
  but for cause, natural and continuous sequence,
  substantial factor, direct, without too many
  intervening causes, likely, in the usual judgment
  of mankind, to produce the result, too remote, in
  time and space, foreseeable. (p. 426)

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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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Assignment
Tuesday 419-434 Thursday Problem 435-452