Superseding and Intervening Cause

Question 1

Superseding intervening cause

Answer 1

• Highly improbable or extraordinary
• Breaks the chain of causation
• Foreseeability also a factor
• If intervening cause is so unlikely that it breaks the chain of causation.

“A cause that precludes imposition of liability upon the remote wrongdoer even though the remote wrongdoer’s act was also a necessary condition of the Victim’s injury.

Question 2

Pollard v. Oklaholma City Ry. Co., (1912)
(Boy Injured by Blasting Powder collected by his friend)
Parents Knowledge of Boy’s Actions = Superseding Cause

Answer 2

“actions of several intelligent and responsible human beings intervening between original negligence and the injury are sufficient to show Millard and parents were proximate cause of the injury. Negligence of company so remote and chain of events so broken they became independent, not natural and probable consequences of the original cause.”

Question 3

Clark v. Du Pont de Nemours Powder Co. (1915)

Answer 3

Joe McDowell, hired to work on farm, finds glycerine, and buries it in a stone wall of a graveyard to protect it. 2 years later it is found by Plaintiff’s 2 young sons and explodes. (No Mischief caused)

Intervening / Not Superseding Cause.

Question 4

Reasonable foreseeability test revisited

Answer 4

• Injury is among those that were reasonably foreseeable to a person situated as was the defendant at the time she acted
o Only general consequences or type of harm must have been reasonably foreseeable
o Extent and precise manner of harm do NOT have to have been reasonably foreseeable.

Question 5

Gross Medical Negligence

Answer 5

= intervening and superseding Cause.

(Negligent medical malpractice = not a Superseding cause)