Opinion ID: 1679366
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Legal CauseCommon Law Approaches

Text: Even where the defendant's conduct has in fact been one of the causes of the plaintiff's injury, the question of legal cause remains, i.e., where the policy of the law will extend responsibility for the conduct to the consequences which have in fact occurred. Prosser and Keeton, supra, § 42. It would not be possible or useful for us to examine in detail the countless variations of legal or proximate cause theory. But it may be helpful to restate some of the recognized generalizations about this area of legal doctrine. There are two contrasting theories of legal cause which recur throughout the cases and account for most of the conflict with respect to the choice of a basic theory: (a) The foreseeable risk theorythe scope of liability should ordinarily extend to but not beyond the scope of the foreseeable risksthat is, the risks by reason of which the actor's conduct is held to be negligent. (b) The direct consequences theorythe scope of liability should ordinarily extend to but not beyond all direct (or directly traceable) consequences and those indirect consequences that are foreseeable. Id. Results are reached in certain types of fact situations that are more accurately characterized as exceptions to these basic rules, but often these outcomes are explained as if they were routine applications of the basic rule. This outcome is accomplished by expansive or narrow application of such flexible concepts as foreseeable and direct. Id. For example, some courts have thrown over the language of foreseeability, and have said outright that it becomes a matter of hindsight, by relating the consequences backward to the original negligence after they have occurred. Id. at § 43, n. 45. The Restatement of Torts has in a limited way adopted this approach by saying that the defendant is not to be liable for consequences which, looking backward after the event with full knowledge of all that has occurred, would appear to be highly extraordinary. Id.; Second Restatement of Torts, § 435(2). In English law many tests are used for determining whether damage is to be legally attributable to the defendant, but the one which predominates in the terminology of the courts is foreseeability of damage. The test, be it noted, is foreseeability in the sense of hindsight, not foresight; it is what a court, reviewing an event later, considers to have been foreseeable in order to do justice in the case before it. Dias and Markesinis, supra, at 37. A minority view holds that a defendant who is negligent must take existing circumstances as they are, and may be liable for consequences brought about by the defendant's acts, even though they were not reasonably to be anticipated. Prosser and Keeton, supra, at § 43. This view becomes a majority position by almost universal agreement, however, when unforeseeable harm to a plaintiff follows an impact upon his person. For example, the defendant is held liable when his negligence operates on a concealed physical condition, such as pregnancy, or a latent disease, or susceptibility to disease, to produce consequences which the defendant could not reasonably anticipate. Id. According to Prosser and Keeton, the scope of the foreseeable risk is on its way to ultimate victory as the criterion of what is legal cause, but the triumph has been both more easily achieved and less clearly significant because the concept of foreseeability so completely lacks all clarity and precision; it amounts to little more than a convenient formula for disposing of the caseusually leaving it to the jury under instructions calling for foreseeable, or natural and probable consequences. Id.