Proximate Cause Notes

Proximate Cause: Foreseeability

Introduction to Proximate Cause

Both factual cause and proximate cause are necessary for a torts case.
Factual causation, initially a scientific inquiry, evolves into a policy consideration due to exceptions when the defendant's negligence isn't a but-for cause.
Proximate cause is primarily about limiting liability for policy reasons, not strictly about causation.
Legal causation is used to emphasize the scope of liability.
Proximate cause narrows the claims eligible for liability based on policy.
It analyzes the causal chain and determines where to cut off liability.
Proximate cause is like a defense, but it is a required element.
Proximate cause is pertinent when an improbable series of events occurs.
Courts have struggled to define and apply proximate cause due to its dependence on policy and case-specifics.
There is no comprehensive theory of proximate causation due to unique policy tensions in each case.
Proximate cause can appear unpredictable and like after-the-fact reasoning.

Examples

Cases to consider (assuming all other elements have been met):

Petition of Kinsman:
- A ship breaks free due to improper securing and ice chunks.
- It collides with another ship and a bridge, causing flooding.
- A building a block away is flooded.
- The building owner sues the ship owner for flood damage.
Thompson v. White:
- A gas station hires clowns to wave signs.
- Clowns distract a third-party driver, who rear-ends the plaintiff.
- The plaintiff sues the gas station, claiming the clowns were a negligent distraction.
DiPonzio v. Riordan:
- A patron leaves their car running at a gas station, violating the station's policy.
- The attendant doesn't enforce the policy.
- The unattended car rolls into the plaintiff.
- The plaintiff sues the gas station for not enforcing its policy.
Colonial Inn Motor Lodge v. Gay:
- The defendant bumps into a heater while backing up, severing a gas line.
- Gas accumulates and is ignited by a pilot light, causing an explosion and destroying the hotel.
- The hotel sues the defendant for the entire loss.
Wagner v. International Ry. Co.:
- A train employee negligently leaves a door open.
- A passenger falls out.
- The plaintiff is injured while negligently searching for their cousin on a steep hill at night.
- The plaintiff sues, claiming injuries from the negligent search.
Pridham v. Cash and Carry Building Center:
- An employee negligently unties a rope holding vinyl panels, and a panel falls on the plaintiff.
- The plaintiff is put in an ambulance, which crashes due to the driver's heart attack, killing the plaintiff.
- The family sues the showroom owner for the death.

Foreseeability

The legal test for proximate cause is foreseeability: the injury must be a reasonably foreseeable type of injury.
Liability is limited to harms resulting from the risks that made the acts negligent.
Four categories of foreseeability when an accident occurs:
- Unforeseeable class of persons injured: someone who would not be reasonably expected to be placed at risk by the defendant’s negligence.
- Unforeseeable type of harm: harm that did not contribute to why the untaken precaution amounted to breach under BPL.
- Unforeseeable particular hazard: unforeseen details of how the harm occurred.
- Unforeseeable extent of harm: out of proportion to what was reasonably foreseeable.
These categories structure thinking about proximate cause issues.
These are not elements of proximate cause, but sometimes there are general results that often flow for the categories.
- Unforeseeable class of persons injured: Usually no proximate cause.
- Unforeseeable type of harm: Usually no proximate cause.
- Unforeseeable extent of harm: Usually proximate cause.
- Unforeseeable particular hazard/manner of harm: Generalizations are too difficult to make.
The legal rule focuses on the foreseeability of the type of injury.
Cases often turn on foreseeability of class of person, particular hazard, and extent of harm.
The cases are analyzed using a framework set out by the casebook author to analyze proximate cause cases.

Policy Rationales

Tort law aims to create incentives to prevent accidents (economic efficiency, deterrence).
Allocation of risk is assigning liability after harm occurs.
Proximate cause relies on economic efficiency and deterrence.
The foreseeability rule imposes liability only for the type of injury that contributes to breach under BPL.
Defendants can't foresee and change behavior for risks they don't know.
Liability for unforeseeable harms is closer to strict liability, leading to excessive precautions.
Unforeseeable harms can lead to unintended behavior changes that make the world a worse place.
Over-deterrence can discourage socially beneficial behavior.
Corporations may pass on liability to consumers via higher prices (incidence).
Clear rules are good for administrability.
Predictable liability incentivizes companies to act as insurance against harms by spreading expected risks across consumers by raising prices.
Clear lines decrease resources spent on lawsuits.
Allocation of risk is assigning liability to a less blameworthy actor who has money.

Grady’s Framework

Professor Mark Grady's framework relies on precedent to predict proximate cause outcomes.
Cases are categorized into 8 different categories.
The categories make sense of existing precedent, but are not laying out legal rules.
Cases are like colored balls in red (liability) and yellow (no liability) buckets.
The task is to decide if a new case (orange ball) is closer to red or yellow.
The framework is used to situate cases into one of the categories.
Lawyers appeal to similar precedents.
Case outcomes have policy rationales baked into them.
We start with four types of cases that only involve the negligence of the defendant.
The other four types of cases involve harm caused by the negligence of the defendant but where another person was also negligent after the defendant’s negligence.
The negligence of another person in this setting is called an “intervening cause.”
The plaintiff and defendant may both argue that more than one scenario applies.

Limited Risks Make Behavior Negligent (“lava-lid cases”)

Defendant's negligence creates narrow risks foreseeable in a limited number of ways.
The particular hazard is an integral part of the risk.
Rule: no proximate cause if the manner of harm isn't within the limited risk that made the conduct negligent.
Facts fitting this category of cases should be advanced only by defendants.
Doughty v. Turner example:
- A lid falls into molten liquid ("lava") and explodes.
- The explosion splashes lava on the plaintiff.
- The plaintiff argues for a broad type of harm and particular hazard because lava is hot and can burn.
- The defendant argues for a narrow type of harm and particular hazard because there 2 risks as a results of the lid falling into the lava. 1- that the lid going in would splash the lava. 2- that the lid having a chemical reaction with the lava would cause an explosion.
- The defendant argues this was the first time the lid reaction had ever happened.

Diverse Risks, Unexpected Manner (“rat-gas cases”)

Defendant's negligence creates definite risks but in unpredictable ways.
Involves explosive materials or large objects getting loose.
Negligence creates risks of injury in diverse ways.
The manner was a mere "variant of the foreseeable."
Thought experiment: if the negligence and final result make sense given large potential dangerous forces, facts fit this category.
Rule: there is proximate cause if the type of plaintiff’s harm is foreseeable but the particular hazard is not.
Facts fitting this category of cases should be advanced only by plaintiffs.
United Novelty Co. v. Daniels example:
- An employee cleans machines with gasoline in a room with an open flame.
- A gas-soaked rat runs to the heater, catches fire, and causes an explosion.
- The plaintiff would argue that this case falls under diverse risks/unexpected manner category of cases.
- The defendant on the other hand would argue that this case falls under the narrow set of risks cases, involving foreseeable hazards leading to the explosion.

Wrong Place at Wrong Time (“banana-slip” cases)

Defendant's negligence doesn't increase the probability of the type of harm suffered.
The plaintiff is in the wrong place at the wrong time due to bad luck.
There is little uncertainty about factual causes.
Rule: no proximate cause if the defendant’s negligence doesn't increase the probability of the type of harm the plaintiff suffered.
Facts fitting this category of cases should be advanced only by defendants.
Mahone v. Birmingham Electric Co. example:
- A bus driver negligently stops the bus far from the curb.
- A passenger slips on a banana peel and falls against the bus.
- The negligence was unrelated to the chance that the plaintiff slipped on a banana peel.

Extent of Harm Cases (“thin-skull” cases)

Defendant's negligence results in foreseeable harm, but the harm is out of proportion to what was reasonably foreseeable.
"Defendant takes the plaintiff as they find them."
Two variants: unusually vulnerable plaintiff or aggravation of preexisting conditions.
Rule: there is proximate cause with respect to an unforeseeable extent of an harm if the type of harm is foreseeable.
Facts fitting this category of cases should be advanced only by plaintiffs.
Hammerstein v. Jean Development West example:
- A diabetic plaintiff evacuates a hotel during a fire alarm, and a blister becomes gangrenous.
- The hotel was negligent in not fixing the faulty fire alarm system.
- This case is a classic thin-skull case because the plaintiff’s diabetes made them unusually vulnerable to serious health issues. Because the blister was foreseeable, the defendant is the proximate cause for all of the harm even though the extent of harm was not foreseeable.

An Example

For the purpose of the exam in this class, questions asking you to apply the Grady framework where there is no intervening cause should set out the type of case or cases that both the plaintiff and defendant would argue.
Consider the facts of Polemis:
- The defendant’s ship spilled flammable fuel, and a plank fell into the hold, causing a spark and explosion.
- The plaintiff's argument: Rat-gas case or thin-skull case.
- The defendant's argument: Lava-lid case.

Applications

Apply the above proximate cause framework to the following cases with simplified facts.
- Petition of Kinsman: A large ship was not properly secured to a dock on a river. Ice chunks from river were lodged between ship and the dock, causing the ship to break free. A hot mess ensued. The ship went down river with no one on board, first crashing into another ship that also got loose. Both ships continued down the river, crashing into a bridge and a third ship. The ships and the bridge created a dam and area flooded. A building that was a block away from the river was flooded by the water. The only damage was water. The owner of the building sued the owner of the ship that originally got loose for flood damage.
- Colonial Inn Motor Lodge v. Gay: The defendant was backing up their car in a hotel parking lot. The defendant bumped into a heater on the side of the building. The defendant thought they bumped a wall, so he drove away. Unfortunately, the accident severed a gas line and gas accumulated inside the hotel. Later, a pilot light of a furnace in the laundry room of the hotel ignited the gas, leading to a large explosion that brought down the entire hotel. The hotel sues the defendant for the entire loss of the building.
- Johnson v. Kosmos Portland Cement Co.: Tom owned a ship and was delivering a cargo of gas. During the delivery, gas from the shipment spilled and there was a considerable amount on the floor in various places on and in the ship. Tom hired Anna to do some welding on the ship. If Anna started welding, assume the ship would have exploded immediately. As P was getting ready to weld, a lightning bolt from the sky hit the ship and the ship immediately exploded killing Anna. Assume Tom was negligent in not cleaning up the gas (the untaken precaution). Anna’s estate sues Tom.