Case Name: UNION PUMP COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Sue ALLBRITTON, Respondent
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1995-05-11
Citations: 898 S.W.2d 773
Docket Number: No. 94-0878
Parties: UNION PUMP COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Sue ALLBRITTON, Respondent.
Judges: PHILLIPS, Chief Justice, and GONZALEZ, HIGHTOWER, HECHT, GAMMAGE and ENOCH, Justices, join.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 898
Pages: 773–786

Head Matter:
UNION PUMP COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Sue ALLBRITTON, Respondent.
No. 94-0878.
Supreme Court of Texas.
Argued Feb. 9, 1995.
Decided May 11, 1995.
Rehearing Overruled June 8, 1995.
David B. Gaultney, Vickie Thompson, Beaumont, for petitioner.
Tommy L. Yeates, Jon B. Burmeister, Beaumont, for respondent.

Opinion:
OWEN, Justice.
The issue in this case is whether the condition, act, or omission of which a personal injury plaintiff complains was, as a matter of law, too remote to constitute legal causation. Plaintiff brought suit alleging negligence, gross negligence, and strict liability, and the trial court granted summary judgment for the defendant. The court of appeals reversed and remanded, holding that the plaintiff raised issues of fact concerning proximate and producing cause. 888 S.W.2d 833. Because we conclude that there was no legal causation as a matter of law, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and render judgment that plaintiff take nothing.
On the night of September 4, 1989, a fire occurred at Texaco Chemical Company's facility in Port Arthur, Texas. A pump manufactured by Union Pump Company caught fire and ignited the surrounding area. This particular pump had caught on fire twice before. Sue Allbritton, a trainee employee of Texaco Chemical, had just finished her shift and was about to leave the plant when the fire erupted. She and her supervisor Felipe Subia, Jr., were directed to and did assist in abating the fire.
Approximately two hours later, the fire was extinguished. However, there appeared to be a problem with a nitrogen purge valve, and Subia was instructed to block in the valve. Viewing the facts in a light most favorable to Allbritton, there was some evidence that an emergency situation existed at that point in time. Allbritton asked if she could accompany Subia and was allowed to do so. To get to the nitrogen purge valve, Allbritton followed Subia over an above-ground pipe rack, which was approximately two and one-half feet high, rather than going around it. It is undisputed that this was not the safer route, but it was the shorter one. Upon reaching the valve, Subia and Allbrit-ton were notified that it was not necessary to block it off. Instead of returning by the route around the pipe rack, Subia chose to walk across it, and Allbritton followed. All-britton was injured when she hopped or slipped off the pipe rack. There is evidence that the pipe rack was wet because of the fire and that Allbritton and Subia were still wearing fireman's hip boots and other firefighting gear when the injury occurred. Subia admitted that he chose to walk over the pipe rack rather than taking a safer alternative route because he had a "bad habit" of doing so.
Allbritton sued Union Pump, alleging negligence, gross negligence, and strict liability theories of recovery, and accordingly, that the defective pump was a proximate or producing cause of her injuries. But for the pump fire, she asserts, she would never have walked over the pipe rack, which was wet with water or firefighting foam.
Following discovery, Union Pump moved for summary judgment. To be entitled to summary judgment, the movant has the burden of establishing that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Nixon v. Mr. Property Management Co., 690 S.W.2d 546, 548 (Tex.1985). A defendant who moves for summary judgment must conclusively disprove one of the elements of each of the plaintiffs causes of action. Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Perez, 819 S.W.2d 470, 471 (Tex. 1991). All doubts must be resolved against Union Pump and all evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to Allbritton. Id. The question before this Court is whether Union Pump established as a matter of law that neither its conduct nor its product was a legal cause of Allbritton's injuries. Stated another way, was Union Pump correct in contending that there was no causative link between the defective pump and Allbritton's injuries as a matter of law?
Negligence requires a showing of proximate cause, while producing cause is the test in strict liability. General Motors Corp. v. Saenz, 873 S.W.2d 353, 357 (Tex.1993). Proximate and producing cause differ in that foreseeability is an element of proximate cause, but not of producing cause. Id. Proximate cause consists of both cause in fact and foreseeability. Travis v. City of Mesquite, 830 S.W.2d 94, 98 (Tex.1992); Missouri Pac. R.R. Co. v. American Statesman, 552 S.W.2d 99, 103 (Tex.1977); Nixon, 690 S.W.2d at 549. Cause in fact means that the defendant's act or omission was a substantial factor in bringing about the injury which would not otherwise have occurred. Prudential Ins. Co. v. Jefferson Assocs., 896 S.W.2d 156 (Tex.1995); Nixon, 690 S.W.2d at 549; Havner v. E-Z Mart Stores, Inc., 825 S.W.2d 456, 458-59 (Tex.1992). A producing cause is "an efficient, exciting, or contributing cause, which in a natural sequence, produced injuries or damages complained of, if any." Haynes & Boone v. Bowser Bouldin, Ltd., 896 S.W.2d 179 (Tex.1995); Rourke v. Garza, 530 S.W.2d 794, 801 (Tex.1975). Common to both proximate and producing cause is causation in fact, including the requirement that the defendant's conduct or product be a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiffs injuries. Prudential, 896 S.W.2d at 161; Lear Siegler, 819 S.W.2d at 472 n. 1 (quoting Restatement (Second) of ToRts § 431 cmt. e (1965)).
At some point in the causal chain, the defendant's conduct or product may be too remotely connected with the plaintiffs injury to constitute legal causation. As this Court noted in City of Gladewater v. Pike, 727 S.W.2d 514, 518 (Tex.1987), defining the limits of legal causation "eventually mandates weighing of policy considerations." See also Springall v. Fredericksburg Hospital and Clinic, 225 S.W.2d 232, 235 (Tex.Civ.App.— San Antonio 1949, no writ), in which the court of appeals observed:
[T]he law does not hold one legally responsible for the remote results of his wrongful acts and therefore a line must be drawn between immediate and remote causes. The doctrine of "proximate cause" is employed to determine and fix this line and "is the result of an effort by the courts to avoid, as far as possible the metaphysical and philosophical niceties in the age-old discussion of causation, and to lay down a rule of general application which will, as nearly as may be done by a general rule, apply a practical test, the test of common experience, to human conduct when determining legal rights and legal liability."
Id. at 235 (quoting City of Dallas v. Maxwell, 248 S.W. 667, 670 (Tex.Comm'nApp.1923, holding approved)).
Drawing the line between where legal causation may exist and where, as a matter of law, it cannot, has generated a considerable body of law. Our Court has considered where the limits of legal causation should lie in the factually analogous case of Lear Sie-gler, Inc. v. Perez, supra. The threshold issue was whether causation was negated as a matter of law in an action where negligence and product liability theories were asserted. Perez, an employee of the Texas Highway Department, was driving a truck pulling a flashing arrow sign behind a highway sweeping operation to warn traffic of the highway maintenance. Id. at 471. The sign malfunctioned when wires connecting it to the generator became loose, as they had the previous day. Id. Perez got out of the truck to push the wire connections back together, and an oncoming vehicle, whose driver was asleep, struck the sign, which in turn struck Perez. Id. Perez's survivors brought suit against the manufacturer of the sign. In holding that any defect in the sign was not the legal cause of Perez's injuries, we found a comment to the Restatement (Second) of Torts, section 431, instructive on the issue of legal causation:
In order to be a legal cause of another's harm, it is not enough that the harm would not have occurred had the actor not been negligent.... The negligence must also be a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiffs harm. The word "substantial" is used to denote the fact that the defendant's conduct has such an effect in producing the harm as to lead reasonable men to regard it as a cause, using that word in the popular sense, in which there always lurks the idea of responsibility, rather than in the so-called "philosophic sense," which includes every one of the great number of events without which any happening would not have occurred.
Lear Siegler, 819 S.W.2d at 472 (quoting Restatement (Second) of ToRts § 431 cmt. a (1965)).
As this Court explained in Lear Siegler, the connection between the defendant and the plaintiffs injuries simply may be too attenuated to constitute legal cause. 819 S.W.2d at 472. Legal cause is not established if the defendant's conduct or product does no more than furnish the condition that makes the plaintiffs injury possible. Id. This principle applies with equal force to proximate cause and producing cause. Id. at 472 n. 1.
This Court similarly considered the parameters of legal causation in Bell v. Campbell, 434 S.W.2d 117, 122 (Tex.1968). In Bell, two cars collided, and a trailer attached to one of them disengaged and overturned into the opposite lane. A number of people gathered, and three of them were attempting to move the trailer when they were struck by another vehicle. Id. at 119. This Court held that the parties to the first accident were not a proximate cause of the plaintiffs' injuries, reasoning:
All acts and omissions charged against respondents had run their course and were complete. Their negligence did not actively contribute in any way to the injuries involved in this suit. It simply created a condition which attracted [the plaintiffs] to the scene, where they were injured by a third party.
Id. at 122.
In Bell, this Court examined at some length decisions dealing with intervening causes and decisions dealing with concurring causes. The principles underlying the various legal theories of causation overlap in many respects, but they are not coextensive. While in Bell, this Court held "the injuries involved in this suit were not proximately caused by any negligence of [defendants] but by an independent and intervening agency," id., we also held "[a]ll forces involved in or generated by the first collision had come to rest, and no one was in any real or apparent danger therefrom[,]" id. at 120, and accordingly, that the "[defendants'] negligence was not a concurring cause of [the plaintiffs'] injuries." Id. at 122. This reasoning applies with equal force to Allbritton's claims.
Even if the pump fire were in some sense a "philosophic" or "but for" cause of Allbrit-ton's injuries, the forces generated by the fire had come to rest when she fell off the pipe rack. The fire had been extinguished, and Allbritton was walking away from the scene. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Allbritton, the pump fire did no more than create the condition that made Allbritton's injuries possible. We conclude that the circumstances surrounding her injuries are too remotely connected with Union Pump's conduct or pump to constitute a legal cause of her injuries. See Lear Siegler, 819 S.W.2d at 472.
Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and render judgment that plaintiff take nothing.
PHILLIPS, Chief Justice, and GONZALEZ, HIGHTOWER, HECHT, GAMMAGE and ENOCH, Justices, join.
. In the seminal decision in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928), for example, a railway guard knocked explosives from under the arm of a passenger who was hurrying to board a train. The resulting explosion caused scales some distance away to fall on Palsgraf. The majority in Palsgraf held that as a matter of law, the defendant owed no duty to Palsgraf because "[t]he risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed; . it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension." Id. 162 N.E. at 100. In his dissent in Palsgraf, Judge Andrews opined that the decision should turn not on duly but on proximate cause. In analyzing proximate cause, he recognized:
What we do mean by the word "proximate" is that, because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point.
Id. at 103 (Andrews, J., dissenting).