Opinion ID: 770626
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Proximate Cause and Public Policy

Text: 92 Perhaps sensing that their antitrust and RICO claims are materially the same as those dismissed in Steamfitters, the Hospitals argue that justice and sound public policy dictate that they have standing to sue. The Hospitals cite two district court opinions that take this view. See Blue Cross/Nat'l Asbestos Workers Medical Fund, 36 F. Supp. 2d at 584 (The moral blame attached to [the Tobacco Companies'] conduct, and society's policy in preventing harms in the future, could scarcely argue more strongly in favor of a finding of proximate cause.); Service Employees Int'l Union Health and Welfare Fund, 83 F. Supp. 2d at 84-85 (If Plaintiffs can ultimately prove their allegations, can there really be any doubt that sound public policy demands that they be given an opportunity to do so?) (footnote omitted). 93 These cases are problematic. First, they are district court cases from other circuits. Second, the Courts of Appeals have neither approved nor adopted their holdings. See, e.g., International Bhd. of Teamsters, Local 734 Health and Welfare Trust Fund, 196 F.3d at 827 ([Judge Weinstein's] decision in [Blue Cross/Nat'l Asbestos Workers Medical Fund] fails to anticipate the second circuit's conclusion in Laborers Local 17 Health & Benefit Fund; the... decision is a thinly disguised refusal to accept and follow the second circuit's holding.) Third, to the extent those decisions offer a justice-based conception of proximate cause and standing for antitrust and RICO claims, they run contrary to Steamfitters. 94 For the record, we believe here that sound public policy argues against proximate cause and standing. When an injury is indirect, remote, and many steps away from the alleged cause, it is unadvisable to allow a case to proceed. See Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co., 162 N.E. 99, 103 (N.Y. 1928) (Andrews, J., dissenting) (What we do mean by the word `proximate' is that, because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point.). The Hospitals are dangerously close to asserting that they have standing to sue any company that causes a nonpaying patient's disease or illness. For example, could the hospitals sue a group of auto manufacturers for the unreimbursed costs of treating nonpaying patients injured in car accidents, simply by alleging that the manufacturers conspired to keep defective vehicles on the road? See Assoc. of Wash. Pub. Hosp. Dists., 79 F. Supp. 2d at 1226. We doubt that would be in the interests of public policy. 95 It is beyond dispute that the Tobacco Companies have engaged in decades-long marketing of a product that we now know is demonstrably unsafe. Steamfitters, 171 F.3d at 927. At times, courts have ordered compensation. See, e.g., Amy Driscoll, Jurors Call $145 Billion Tobacco Verdict a `Message'; Florida Panel Members Say Record Award Is Firms' Penalty for Lying, Wash. Post, July 16, 2000, at A2 (a Florida jury returns $145 billion verdict in a class action suit against tobacco companies). We express no view on the propriety of such compensation. We simply hold that, due to the remoteness of the Hospitals' injuries, this third-party suit against the tobacco industry may not proceed. 11