United States v. Carroll Towing Co. 159 F.2d 169 (2d Cir. 1947) • The Connors Company owned a barge. It was being towed by a tugboat owned by Carroll Towing (and operated by Grace Line). Carroll Towing negligently caused the barge to break free, where is drifted around about, hit another boat, and then sank. • They tied a whole bunch of barges together, and that stressed the line too much, and all the ships broke free. • The Trial Court found Grace Line and Carroll Towing liable for negligence in the incident. • However, Carroll towing argued that Connors was partially responsible. • The Connors barge did not have anyone on board during the tow. If there was someone on board, they could have mitigated the damage and prevented the barge from sinking. • The Appellate Court agreed and reduced the damages. • The Appellate Court found that it was reasonably foreseeable that the barge would break free. Therefore, Connors needed to take reasonable care to mitigate potential damages. • The Appellate Court suggests an algebraic formula for determining care. They say that if (Probability of injury) x (Potential liability) > (Costs of the extra burden), then you have a duty to take on that extra burden. • This reasoning is sometimes known as the risk-utility formula. • With this formula, you really have to integrate over the various possibly injuries and the probabilities of those results. For example, what if there is a 10% chance of killing 1 person and a 1% chance of killing 10 people. The math gets complicated. • This is also known as the Hand Formula, since the judge who gave this opinion was the famous Learned Hand. • Does this seem a very cold and impersonal way to account for people's lives? • The risk-utility formula only applies to situations where the defendant has time to weigh options and make a conscious choice. It wouldn't apply to situations like car accidents where someone has to make a quick decision. • The risk-utility formula is different than most jury instructions. Juries are typically instructed to decide if the defendants acted reasonably under the circumstances and anticipated foreseeable events. They aren't given formulas. • The risk-utility formula is most often used by appellate courts to determine if the damages a jury gave are reasonable, and by trial judges to determine if there should be a directed verdict. • The defendant's counsel would never explicitly bring up the risk-utility formula as a defense, since it tends to make the Project Wonderful -Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0defendant look cold and not empathetic. • Btw, this is not a common law case, it's an admiralty law case, since it involves ships. • In admiralty law cases, there is no jury.