Derdiarian v Felix Contracting Corp.
INTERVENING CAUSES Relevant Facts: The operator of a motor vehicle, who failed timely to ingest a dosage of medication, suffered an epileptic seizure and his vehicle careened into an excavation site where a gas main was being installed beneath the street surface. The automobile crashed through a single wooden horse-type barricade put in place by the contractor and struck an employee of a subcontractor, who was propelled into the air. Upon landing the employee was splattered by boiling liquid enamel from a kettle also struck by the vehicle. Although pl’s body was ignited he survived. Legal Issue(s): Whether the contractor's inadequate safety precautions on the work site were the proximate cause of the accident? Court’s Holding: YES, The driver was negligent, or even reckless, and did not insulate general contractor from liability nor did fact that driver lost control for negligent failure to take medication. Procedure: The S Ct, Trial Term, jury determined in favor of PL, judge rendered interlocutory judgment on liability issue. The S Ct, App Division, affirmed; Order of App Division affirmed. Law or Rule(s): Where acts of a third person intervene between defendant's conduct and plaintiff's injury, the causal connection is not automatically severed and, in such case, liability turns on whether the intervening act is a normal or foreseeable consequence of the situation created by defendant's negligence. Court Rationale: That fact that the defendant could not anticipate the precise manner of the accident or the exact nature of the injuries does not preclude liability as a matter of law where the general risk and character of injuries are foreseeable. From the evidence in the record the jury could have found that Felix negligently failed to safeguard the excavation site. Serious injury or even death, was a foreseeable consequence of a vehicle crashing through the work area. The precise manner of the event need not be anticipated. Plaintiff’s Argument: The intervening car crash was a normal and foreseeable consequence of the situation created by the Df’s negligence. Defendant’s Argument: Felix argues that pl was injured in a freakish accident, brought about solely by dfs' negligence, and therefore there was no causal link, as a matter of law, between Felix' breach of duty and pl's injuries.[ interlocutory - not final.
Plaintiff's theory was that defendant Felix had negligently failed to take adequate measures to insure the safety of workers on the excavation site.
Watson v Kentucky & Indiana Bridge & R.R. Co.
Unforeseen intervening act. Relevant Facts: The df railroad tank car full of gasoline was derailed and a valve broke and gas ran into the street. Duerr struck a match to light his cigar and ignited the gas vapor. Pl was injured by the explosion. Duerr was heard saying “let’s go set the damn thing on fire,” and deliberately struck the match and threw it. Legal Issue(s):Whether the lighting of the match by Duerr, having resulted in the explosion, was that act merely a contributing cause, or the proximate cause of appellant's injuries? Court’s Holding: Superceding and contributing cause. Procedure: Trial ct . directed a verdict for the df, and pl appealed. Law or Rule(s): Where the intervening causes, acts, or conditions were set in motion by earlier negligence, or naturally induced by such wrongful act or omission, or even if the intervening acts or conditions were of a nature the happening of which was reasonably to have been anticipated, though they may have been acts of the plaintiff himself. Court Rationale: The mere fact that the concurrent cause was unforeseen will not relieve from liability one guilty of primary negligence, but if it is something so unexpected or extraordinary that he could not, or ought not to, have anticipated it, he will not be liable, and he is certainly not bound to anticipate criminal acts of others inflicting damage, and so is not liable therefor. The appellee’s could not have guarded against nor reasonably anticipated. The primary negligence of appellees was not the proximate cause of appellant’s injuries. Plaintiff’s Argument: The lighting of the match was an intervening cause of the explosion which was a foreseeable consequence after a gas spill. Defendant’s Argument: Appellees caused the gas to be on the street, but could not reasonably foresee the criminal acts of another unrelated person lighting the gas. The true rule is that what is the proximate cause of the injury is ordinarily a question for the jury. It is not a question of science or legal knowledge. It is to be determined as a fact in view of the circumstances of fact attending it.