Opinion ID: 2232196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Instruct on Intervening Cause.

Text: Plaintiffs maintain that the trial court committed prejudicial error in failing to give the following requested instruction to the jury: If you answer the first question `Yes' [negligence question], then in considering your answer to the second question, whether the negligence of the Walgreen Company in selling the toy jet plane was a cause of the injury sustained by the child, Karen Strahlendorf, you are instructed that if the conduct of the grandmother in buying the plane and the subsequent conduct of the son and grandson in regard to the use of the toy jet plane ought reasonably to have been anticipated by the Walgreen Company as not entirely improbable, then you are not to regard the conduct of the grandmother, son, and grandson as breaking any causal connection you may find to have existed between the negligence of Walgreen Company and the injury to the child, Karen Strahlendorf. (Emphasis supplied.) The emphasized words clearly interject the element of foreseebility into the jury's determination on the issue of causation. This court is definitely committed to the principle that, while foreseeability is an element to be considered by  the jury in determining negligence, it has no part in the jury's decision of whether particular negligence found by it is causal. Pfeifer v. Standard Gateway Theater (1952), 262 Wis. 229, 234, 55 N. W. (2d) 29, and Osborne v. Montgomery (1931), 203 Wis. 223, 242, 234 N. W. 372. With respect to the causation question, the trial court instructed the jury as follows: The inquiry presented by this question is whether the relation of cause and effect existed between negligence, or failure to exercise ordinary care, if found by you, and the accident. There may be more than one cause of an accident. The negligence of one person alone may cause it, or the negligent acts or omissions of two or more persons may jointly cause it as the word `cause' is used in this question. Before such relation of cause and effect can be found to exist, however, it must appear that the negligence, or failure to exercise ordinary care, under consideration was a substantial factor in producing the accident, that is to say, that it was a factor actually operating and which had a substantial effect in producing the accident as a natural result. This instruction is substantially that embodied in Wis J ICivil, Part I, 1500. Plaintiffs contend that this instruction did not sufficiently inform the jury on the effect of intervening or concurring negligence. However, the instruction given did inform the jury that there can be more than one cause of an accident and that the negligence of two or more persons may jointly cause it, but that it must appear that the negligence under consideration was a substantial factor in producing the accident. The fallacy in plaintiffs' contention is the implicit assumption that the question of intervening cause is for the jury. This court clarified the law on this point in Ryan v. Cameron (1955), 270 Wis. 325, 331, 71 N. W. (2d) 408, when it stated: Where intervening cause of another is interposed as a defense by a defendant charged with negligence who was the  first actor, the jury is first required to find whether the found negligence of such first actor was a substantial factor in causing the accident on which liability is sought to be predicated. Pfeifer v. Standard Gateway Theater (1952), 262 Wis. 229, 55 N. W. (2d) 29. If the jury does find that the negligence of the first actor was a substantial factor in causing the accident, then the defense of intervening cause is unavailing unless the court determines as a matter of law that there are policy factors which should relieve the first actor from liability. Ibid. As Professor Richard V. Campbell points out in his recent article in January, 1955 Wisconsin Law Review, 5, at page 40, it is at this point that the principles of Restatement, 2 Torts, p. 1196, sec. 447, should be used by the court as an aid in deciding such policy factors. This court adopted the principles of intervening cause set forth in Restatement, 2 Torts, p. 1196, sec. 447, in McFee v. Harker (1952), 261 Wis. 213, 219, 52 N. W. (2d) 381. This section of the Restatement provides that an intervening negligent act of a third person shall not be a superseding cause of harm to another, which the first actor's negligent conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about, if any one of three specified fact situations occur. The first of these, which is set forth in par. (a) of sec. 447, is where the [first] actor at the time of his negligent conduct should have realized that a third person might so act. However, under our holding in Ryan v. Cameron, supra , it is the function of the court and not the jury to make the determination of whether the first actor, who has been found guilty of negligence, should have realized that some third person might act in the way that he did to help cause harm to another. As applied to the instant facts, the question would be whether defendant, in selling the toy plane, should have realized that Karen's grandmother, father, and little brother might act as they did. However, as a condition precedent to the trial court's being required to pass on this question, it would have been necessary for the jury to have determined that the defendant's  found negligence was causal. The jury has found that it was not. From the foregoing, it is apparent that the trial court did not err in refusing to give the instruction on intervening cause which plaintiffs requested. Situations may arise in other cases in connection with an issue of superseding intervening cause, which will necessitate a jury determination of some disputed issue of material fact. However, once the jury has found the facts, it is for the court to determine whether the intervening cause is a superseding one which relieves the first actor from liability even though he has been found causally negligent.