The package contained fireworks and exploded, causing a scale on the platform to fall, injuring Mrs. Palsgraf. Like medical doctors, lawyers have become immersed in their own narrow specializations. Doctors sometimes forget that behind that intriguing gall bladder problem there is a whole human being with a lifestyle, family problems and work stresses that contribute to their disease. Gall bladder surgery may relieve the symptoms, but it won't heal the patient. In the same way, we lawyers tend to forget that our clients don't just have legal problems, they have life problems.
Lawyers tend to look backward in time, and reflexively seek damages for past legal wrongs.
If lawyers concentrated instead on helping their clients design better futures, I believe they would provide better service to their clients and find their practices more gratifying. The Palsgraf case is the most famous case in the law of negligence. Almost no one graduates from law school without reading it. When I first began teaching Palsgraf, I was struck by the fact that the appellate decision contains only the barest description of the facts. After reading the case, you do not know how old Mrs. Palsgraf was, what her hopes and dreams were, whether she had any family, nor even the precise nature of her injury.