Opinion ID: 2054337
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Historical Context

Text: A conclusion that the Legislature intended sole causation in subsection 375(2) would not only ignore the text of the statute, it would also be inconsistent with concurrent causation principles predating the enactment of the predecessor of subsection 375(2) in 1912. [6] The law has consistently recognized that there may be more than one proximate cause. The worker's compensation act eliminates contributory negligence (unless wilful) as a defense in death cases [7] and thus explicitly refutes any contention that the Legislature employed the phrase the proximate cause in 1912 as a reference to contributory negligence principles that existed at the time. Op. at 361. [8] Moreover any suggestion that principles of the doctrine of contributory negligence support the Legislature's intention to apply a standard of sole causation bespeaks a misunderstanding of common law contributory negligence, which was an affirmative defense that barred the plaintiff from recovery. There is no foundation in the common law for the notion that, because contributory negligence was a defense, the acts of the defendant on which liability was premised were required to be the sole cause of injury. In other words, while contributory negligence was an independent intervening cause that would bar recovery, if there was no contributory negligence, the defendant might or might not be responsible, depending on whether the injury was proximately caused by the act that was alleged to impose liability. It is axiomatic that the existence of concurrent proximate causes at common law did not bar recovery. As early as Gage v. Pontiac, O & N R Co., 105 Mich. 335, 63 N.W. 318 (1895), this Court recognized the existence of concurrent proximate causes contributing to the plaintiff's injury. The plaintiff was injured when she was thrown from her carriage after the horse drawing the carriage, while crossing a bridge, made a sudden shy [9] to the right, id. at 339, 63 N.W. 318, and went over the side of the bridge. The plaintiff claimed the absence of guardrails on the bridge was the proximate cause of her injuries, while the defendant maintained it was the horse's shy that proximately caused the injuries. The Court held: [I]t cannot be said, as a matter of law, that the mere shying of the horse, and not the improper and dangerous condition of the highway, was the proximate cause of the injury. They were apparently concurring causes,the one, the shying of the horse, where neither party can be said to be in fault; and the other, the defect in the highway, for which, under the finding of the jury, the defendant company is responsible. [ Id. at 342, 63 N.W. 318.] The Court supported its decision not to disturb the jury's decision on appeal with reference to Houfe v. Town of Fulton, 29 Wis. 296 (1871): [In that case], it was held that where, besides the defect in the highway, there is another proximate cause contributing directly to produce the injury, which cause is not attributable to plaintiff's negligence nor that of any third person, the town is still liable in case the jury find that the damage would not have been sustained but for the defect in the way. [ Gage, supra at 343, 63 N.W. 318 (emphasis added).] The common-law understanding of concurrent proximate causation has obtained through recent statutory modifications. [10] Thus, in 1946, this Court, relying in part on Gage, unanimously stated: Since a concurring cause may be a proximate cause, the rule is that one is liable to respond in damages for an injury which was the natural and probable result of the concurrence of his negligence with the negligence of another, or with an act of God or pure accident, or with an inanimate cause, notwithstanding his lack of responsibility for the other cause. [ Brackins v. Olympia, Inc., 316 Mich. 275, 281, 25 N.W.2d 197 (1946).] The Brackins Court's discussion of this rule also included the specific acknowledgment not only that there may be more than one proximate cause, but that where this is the case, the negligent wrongdoers cause may be referred to as the proximate cause: [T]here may be two or more concurrent and directly cooperative and efficient proximate causes of an injury. Negligence which was operative at the time an injury was inflicted may constitute the proximate cause of the injury and be actionable, notwithstanding it concurred with the act of a third person to produce the injury. [ Id. (emphasis added).][ [11] ] Thus, construing the phrase, the proximate cause to require sole proximate cause would contradict the common law's longstanding recognition of the fact that, there may be two or more concurrent and directly cooperative and efficient proximate causes of an injury. Id. Absent some persuasive support that the Legislature intended to deviate from the common law's established recognition of concurrent proximate causation, we have neither textual nor historical basis to construe subsection 375(2) to require a showing of sole proximate causation. [12] Having determined that there is no basis to conclude that the Legislature intended the phrase the proximate cause to mean the sole cause, we offer some additional observations before turning to the application of § 375 to the facts before us.