Opinion ID: 2588258
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Tortious Act Must Proximately Cause The Consequential Damages

Text: In torts involving interference with contract and economic opportunity [m]ost courts award damages under tort principles . . . with damages limits based upon proximate cause rather than contemplation of the parties. Dan B. Dobbs, The Law of Torts, § 455, at 1297 (2000) [hereinafter Law of Torts ]; see also Dean v. James McHugh Constr. Co., 56 A.D.2d 716, 392 N.Y.S.2d 946, 948 (N.Y.App.Div.1977) (holding that there is no reason why a party who is wrongfully deprived of the use of his funds may not recover damages representing more than the legal interest rate, provided that he can prove that such damages were actually sustained as a proximate result of the deprivation). Under this view, the plaintiff can recover all proximately caused damages, including consequential damages, even if those damages were greater than the damages the plaintiff could recover against [a] contract breacher. Law of Torts, supra, § 455, at 1297. The proximate cause standard requires only that the damages be reasonably foreseeable. Ekberg v. Greene, 196 Colo. 494, 496-97, 588 P.2d 375, 376-77 (1978); see also Walcott v. Total Petroleum, Inc., 964 P.2d 609, 611 (Colo.App.1998) ([F]oreseeability is the touchstone of proximate cause.); cf. C.J.I.-Civ.3d 9:30 (The negligence, if any, of the defendant . . . is not a cause of any . . . damage . . . to the plaintiff. . . unless injury to a person in the plaintiff's situation was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of that negligence.). The exact or precise injury need not have been foreseeable, but it is sufficient if a reasonably careful person, under the same or similar circumstances, would have anticipated that injury to a person in the plaintiff's situation might result from the defendant's conduct. C.J.I.-Civ.3d 9:30. Thus, although broader than Hadley, proximate cause serves as a very real limit on liability. Melvin Aron Eisenberg, The Principle of Hadley v. Baxendale, 80 Calif. L.Rev. 563, 567 (1992) ([T]he choice between a regime based on Hadley v. Baxendale and a regime based on proximate cause is not a choice between liability for foreseeable losses and liability for all losses caused in fact. Rather it is a choice between competing standards of foreseeability. . . .). In sum, because damages resulting from wrongful attachment are governed by tort principles, proximate cause is the appropriate standard by which to assess their extent.