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Question 1

What is an independent intervening force?

Answer 1

A force that doesn’t come from a response or reaction to the defendant’s breach of duty which is reasonably foreseeable and doesn’t supersede the negligence unless it is unforeseeable or intentionally tortious/criminal

Question 2

If you get hit by someone in a car accident and get surgery and a bacteria in the air causes infection and you die, who is liable?

Answer 2

The person that hit you

Question 3

What is the superseding intervening force?

Answer 3

New force that is highly improbable and extraordinary that joins the defendant’s negligence to injure the plaintiff

Question 4

What are some examples of superseding intervening forces?

Answer 4

• acts of nature that weren’t anticipated
• extreme malpractice
• suicide that wasn’t defendant’s fault and defendant didn’t have a special relationship that included knowledge of the risk of suicide

Question 5

If a foreseeable result is caused by an unforeseeable intervening force, where is the liability?

Answer 5

Defendant is still liable as long as the result was foreseeable

Question 6

What are special considerations for foreseeability?

Answer 6

• acts of God
• abnormal rescue attempts
• criminal conduct by third parties
• negligent conduct by third parties
• subsequent or second accident
• risk rule

Question 7

What are examples of acts of God?

Answer 7

Unprecedented and extraordinary floods, storms, weather conditions

Question 8

If a person’s rescue attempt is foolhardy, is it considered foreseeable and relieves the defendant of liability?

Answer 8

Yes, even if it leads to foreseeable result

Question 9

If a third-party doesn’t prevent the harm by the defendant, does that relieve the defendant of liability?

Answer 9

No, even if that third-party had a duty to act

Question 10

If a third-party’s failure to act is so culpable and extraordinary that he neutralized the risk created from the defendant’s original negligence, is his failure a superseding cause?

Answer 10

Yes

Question 11

If you leave dynamite caps and a child picks them up and shows them to his dad, and the dad doesn’t take them away, where does liability lie?

Answer 11

With the dad, because his negligence was extraordinary and neutralized the risk, so you were’t liable

Question 12

Criminal and intentional conduct by third parties usually breaks the chain of causation unless what?

Answer 12

It is within the scope of risk normally created by the defendant’s conduct

Question 13

If a landlord doesn’t keep lights maintained in a high crime area and someone gets attacked, who is responsible?

Answer 13

The landlord because the risk was within the scope of risk normally created by the defendant’s conduct

Question 14

If you leave a skateboard on the sidewalk and it gets used to break a car window to steal a radio, are you liable?

Answer 14

No because the criminal conduct was an intervening event that broke the chain of causation since the risk was that someone would trip on it and fall, not steal something with it

Question 15

Does negligent conduct by third parties break the chain of causation?

Answer 15

Usually, unless it is within the scope of the risk created by the conduct

Question 16

If you block the sidewalk and force someone to step onto the street, are you liable if that person gets hit by a negligent driver?

Answer 16

Yes, because the scope of the risk was someone getting hurt on the street

Question 17

If you block the sidewalk and someone has to step on the street and gets shot by a stray bullet from a nearby bank robbery, are you liable ?

Answer 17

No, because that wasn’t within the scope of the risk and counts as an intervening cause that relieves liability

Question 18

Is the defendant liable if his negligence leaves the P in a position of peril?

Answer 18

Yes

Question 19

If you negligently run over a pedestrian who is then hit by a bus, are you the proximate cause of all of his injuries?

Answer 19

Yes, because your negligence left him in a position of peril

Question 20

What is the risk rule?

Answer 20

If the harm is within the scope of the risk from defendant’s conduct, proximate cause is present

Question 21

If you leave an open pit in the sidewalk and the plaintiff was injured when someone pushed him in the pit, are you liable?

Answer 21

Yes, because the harm was within the scope even though the manner was unexpected

Question 22

What does superseding mean?

Answer 22

The force is so highly improbable and extraordinary that there’s no connection to the harm threatened and it is an exception to the foreseeability test

Question 23

What is the restatement’s test for figuring out if an intervening force is superseding?

Answer 23

• if the intervention causes harm different than what usually happens
• consequences are extraordinary
• force is independent of the situation created by defendant
• force is due to third party’s act/failure to act
• third person’s act as wrongful toward another, so he is liable

Question 24

What is the eggshell personal injury rule?

Answer 24

The type of injury doesn’t have to be foreseeable because you take the plaintiff as you find him and defendant is liable for unforeseeable or uncommon reactions to the defendant’s negligent or intentional act

Question 25

Abnormal or highly unusual reactions to defendant’s breach are usually what?

Answer 25

Unforeseeable and supersede defendants liability