Opinion ID: 1040176
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Evidence of Proximate Cause in Aumais

Text: In Aumais, defendant Gerald Aumais had pled guilty to transporting and possessing child pornography, including images of Amy, and the district court ordered him to make restitution to Amy, pursuant to section 2259. See Aumais, 656 F.3d at 149-51. We reversed because [p]roximate cause demands 'some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct - 19 - alleged,' and there was no evidence that such a relationship existed between Aumais's possession and Amy's losses. See id. at 154-55 (citation omitted). The district court had relied on Amy's victim impact statement and the testimony of Dr. Silberg, see id. at 149-50, but Amy's statement was prepared and Dr. Silberg's evaluations took place before Aumais was arrested on November 16, 2008. Id. at 154. This evidence suffered from several deficiencies: (1) it did not show that Amy had direct contact with Aumais or that she even knew of his existence; (2) the victim impact statement did not mention Aumais; and (3) Dr. Silberg could not speak to the impact on Amy caused by this defendant because her evaluations were all performed before Aumais's arrest. Id. Accordingly, there was a complete absence of evidence linking Aumais' possession to any loss suffered by Amy. Id. at 155. We did not decide the circumstances in which a victim of child pornography can recover restitution, or the type of proof that would suffice to show causation. We did quote with approval a portion of the Ninth Circuit's decision in United States v. Kennedy, 643 F.3d 1251 (9th Cir. 2011): The government's evidence showed only that the defendant participated in the audience of persons who viewed the images of Amy. While this may be sufficient to establish that the defendant's actions were - 20 - one cause of the generalized harm Amy suffered due to the circulation of her images on the internet, it is not sufficient to show that they were a proximate cause of any particular losses. Aumais, 656 F.3d at 154-55 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted) (quoting Kennedy, 643 F.3d at 1264). We carefully noted, however, that our opinion does not categorically foreclose payment of restitution to victims of child pornography from a defendant who possesses their pornographic images. Id. at 155. Indeed, we acknowledged that the evidence of harm suffered by Amy was credible and well-established. See id. We only narrowly held that where the Victim Impact Statement and the psychological evaluation were drafted before the defendant was even arrested -- or might as well have been -- . . . the victim's loss was not proximately caused by a defendant's possession of the victim's image. Id. In Aumais and Kennedy, both courts were concerned that the record did not include any evidence that [the defendant's] conduct contributed to [the victim's] claimed losses at all. Kennedy, 643 F.3d at 1264 (emphasis added); see Aumais, 656 F.3d at 155. In both cases, the government relied on essentially the same evidence: victim impact statements and psychological evaluations demonstrating that the victim generally suffered harm from her awareness that - 21 - unidentified persons were able to look at images of her childhood abuse. See, e.g., Aumais, 656 F.3d at 149-50; Kennedy, 643 F.3d at 1255-56. In neither case did the government present evidence that the victim continued to suffer this harm after the defendant's possession of her images, at a time when the victim would have learned -- and in fact did learn -- about the specific defendant's offense. Thus, in both cases, the government proved only that the victims suffered harm from their general fear that others were likely in possession of their images -- harm that would have existed whether or not the specific defendants had ever actually possessed the victims' images. See United States v. Fast, 709 F.3d 712, 722 (8th Cir. 2013) (explaining that defendant could not have caused -- and thus could not be liable for -- losses before the date he possessed images of the victim); United States v. Gamble, 709 F.3d 541, 554 (6th Cir. 2013) (As a logical matter, a defendant generally cannot cause harm prior to the date of his offense.). The Ninth Circuit's decision in Kennedy does suggest, in a portion not cited in Aumais, that the government must prove that the defendant directly caused some discrete, measurable aggravation of the injury. See Kennedy, 643 F.3d at 1264-65 ([T]he district court's inability to calculate the loss attributable to - 22 - Kennedy's offense is due to the government's failure to introduce evidence of such a loss (such as evidence that Kennedy's conduct led to Amy and Vicky needing additional therapy sessions or missing days at work).). We decline to follow this dicta, for several reasons. First, a recent Ninth Circuit per curiam opinion appears to cast doubt on this aspect of Kennedy. See In re Amy, 710 F.3d 985, 987 (9th Cir. 2013) (per curiam). In that case, the district court concluded that Amy's and another victim's evidence did not satisfy the standard established in Kennedy, but the Ninth Circuit issued a writ of mandamus ordering the lower court to award restitution because there was sufficient evidence to establish a causal connection between defendant's offense and petitioners' losses. Id. Although the restitution requests are sealed, the publicly available briefs submitted to the Ninth Circuit suggest that the victims did not present particularized evidence of the sort described in Kennedy; indeed, the evidence in that case appears to be no different than the evidence now before us. See Petition for a Writ of Mandamus at 12-14, 21-22, In re Amy, No. 13-70858 (9th Cir. Mar. 8, 2013) (ECF No. 2); see also Response by the United States at 9 n.5, In re Amy, No. 13-70858 (9th Cir. Mar. 11, 2013) (ECF No. 8) (advocating for the same method of calculating restitution - 23 - used in this case). In sum, the Ninth Circuit has found non-particularized evidence sufficient to support an award of restitution. To the extent that Kennedy imposes a stricter requirement for proof of causation, we decline to adopt that approach. Second, while nearly every circuit has recognized a proximate cause requirement in section 2259, see supra note 9, most of these courts have also acknowledged the inherent difficulty of applying that concept in this context. Accordingly, none has required, as a matter of law, more particularized proof than what has been presented in this case.10 Finally, a legal rule demanding more particularized proof would be inconsistent with the principles underlying the concept of proximate cause, 10 See, e.g., Gamble, 709 F.3d at 549-50 (Generally if the injury is the type that the statute was intended to prohibit, it is more likely to be proximately caused.); Kearney, 672 F.3d at 99 (rejecting the theory that the victim of child pornography could only show causation if she focused on a specific defendant's viewing and redistribution of her images and then attributed specific losses to that defendant's actions); Burgess, 684 F.3d at 460 (While the district court is not required to justify any award with absolute precision, the amount of the award must have a sufficient factual predicate.); McDaniel, 631 F.3d at 1207 (considering proximate cause to be a factual finding reviewed for clear error); see also Kennedy, 643 F.3d at 1263 (citing McDaniel with approval and noting that in that case, the government established proximate cause through evidence that: (1) NCMEC had notified the victim that the defendant possessed her image, (2) the victim suffered when she received such notices, and (3) this suffering necessitated further therapy). - 24 - which Congress did not abrogate when it drafted § 2259. Aumais, 656 F.3d at 153. Proximate cause refers generally to the concept that [i]njuries have countless causes, [but because] not all should give rise to legal liability, the law will 'decline[] to trace a series of events beyond a certain point.' CSX Transp., Inc. v. McBride, 131 S. Ct. 2630, 2637 (2011) (quoting Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 352 (1928) (Andrews, J., dissenting)). At bottom, the notion of proximate cause reflects 'ideas of what justice demands, or of what is administratively possible and convenient.' Aumais, 536 F.3d at 154 (quoting Holmes v. Sec. Investor Prot. Corp., 503 U.S. 258, 268 (1992)). Of course, what justice demands is heavily dependent on the circumstances. Hence, there can be no bright line demarcating a legally sufficient proximate cause from one that is too remote.11 People v. Roberts, 826 11 See also Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 353-54 (1928) (Andrews, J., dissenting) ([T]he problem of proximate cause is not to be solved by any one consideration. . . . There are no fixed rules to govern our judgment.); Dan B. Dobbs et al., The Law of Torts § 199 (2d ed. supp. 2013) (The [proximate cause] rules call for judgments, not juggernauts of logic. . . . [N]o version of the rules can be expected to assure any given answer in a particular case . . . .). This inherent difficulty has led many to criticize the various articulations and applications of the proximate cause standard as arbitrar[y], CSX Transp., Inc. v. McBride, 131 S. Ct. 2630, 2637 (2011) (quotation omitted), and confus[ing], Exxon Co., U.S.A. v. Sofec, Inc., 517 U.S. 830, 838 (1996). Despite its shortcomings, however, proximate cause remains an enduring common law concept that is useful despite its imprecision. CSX Transp., Inc., 131 S. Ct. at 2645 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting). - 25 - P.2d 274, 300 n.11 (Cal. 1992). Accordingly, we decline to adopt a rule mandating the type of proof victims of child pornography must present before they can obtain restitution. It is sufficient if the evidence shows that there is more likely than not some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged. Aumais, 656 F.3d at 154 (quotation omitted); see also 18 U.S.C. § 3664(e) (Any dispute . . . shall be resolved by the court by the preponderance of the evidence.).