Opinion ID: 1230488
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the proximate cause instruction

Text: Wren contends that the judge failed properly to emphasize that the defendant's actions must be the proximate cause rather than a proximate cause of the death. She submitted a proposed instruction which would have supplemented the proximate cause instruction. It provided in part: The defendant's act in a prosecution for negligent homicide must be the proximate cause and not a proximate cause of death. The state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's unlawful act was the proximate cause of the death of Thomas Farry. (emphasis added) The court's instruction on proximate cause read: In addition, before you can find the defendant guilty, you must find not only that the defendant was guilty of culpable negligence as set forth in these instructions, but must go further and find that such criminal negligence was the proximate cause of the death of the said Thomas J. Farry. The proximate cause is that cause which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces the result, and without which the result would not have occurred. It is the efficient cause  the one that necessarily sets in operation the factors that accomplish the result. If you find that there was an independent intervening act that the defendant could not have foreseen then you must find that the Defendant's acts were not the proximate cause of the deceased's death. Appellant claims that the court erred in not specifically instructing the jury that there existed a lower standard of proximate cause in civil cases that was inapplicable in negligent homicide, citing People v. Buck, 71 Mich. App. 28, 246 N.W.2d 351, 352 (1976), in which the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed an instruction that the jury could find guilt if the conduct were found to be a proximate cause of the accident. That court relied in part on People v. Scott, 29 Mich. App. 549, 185 N.W.2d 576 (1971), a case which held that the criminally negligent act must be the only direct and proximate cause in order for criminal liability to attach. Id. at 581. We decline to accept this reasoning. We note that Scott purported to rely on Commonwealth v. Root, 403 Pa. 571, 170 A.2d 310 (1961), but, nevertheless, disregarded the concession of the Root case that there can be more than one proximate cause of death. Id. 170 A.2d at 313. The state, in a criminal case, is not required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's negligence was the sole proximate cause of the death. [12] Where a defendant negligently creates a risk of death to another person, the fact that the person actually died as a result of the combination of that negligence plus some other contributing factor does not serve to exculpate. [13] So long as the defendant's acts are found by the jury to rise to the high level of culpable negligence [14] and so long as the defendant's acts actually constitute a substantial factor in causing the death, absent any factors to justify or excuse, [15] there is liability for the negligence. [16] We find that the court did not err in failing to include the additional requested instruction. AFFIRMED. BURKE, J., with whom RABINOWITZ, J., joins, concurring.