Opinion ID: 1884282
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Proximate Cause Mississippi Precedent

Text: ¶ 46. In reviewing this Court's plentiful precedent on proximate cause, we are struck by the numerous and sometimes facially inconsistent proclamations. One easily could argue this Court's definition of proximate cause in one case to establish the incorrectness of another. This facial inconsistency appears to result from this Court's reference in many prior cases to only so much of the law of proximate cause as was necessary to decide the case then pending before the Court. ¶ 47. For instance, in M & M Pipe and Pressure Vessel Fabricators, Inc. v. Roberts, 531 So.2d 615 (Miss.1988), this Court said: In determining whether the actor's negligence was the proximate cause of the injury, it is not necessary that the actor should have foreseen the particular injury that happened; it is enough that he [or she] could have foreseen that his [or her] conduct could cause some injury. Id. at 618 ( citing Cumberland Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Woodham, 99 Miss. 318, 332, 54 So. 890, 891 (1911)). This language often is cited literally, and is argued to mean that, so long as a defendant reasonably should foresee that his or her negligent conduct could cause some injury, the defendant will be liable for any and all injury flowing from the negligence, regardless of the type or category of those additional injuries, and regardless of how remote or unforeseeable they may be. ¶ 48. However, in Mauney v. Gulf Refining Co., 193 Miss. 421, 9 So.2d 780, 781 (1942), this Court divided injuries resulting from negligent conduct into two classifications: those which are reasonably foreseeable (for which a plaintiff may recover), and those which are not reasonably foreseeable (for which a plaintiff may not recover). Specifically, the Mauney Court held: The settled law in this state may be summarized in the form of a diagram, as follows: The area within which liability is imposed is that which is within the circle of reasonable foreseeability using the original point at which the negligent act was committed or became operative, and thence looking in every direction as the semidiameters of the circle, and those injuries which from this point could or should have been reasonably foreseen as something likely to happen are within the field of liability, while those which, although foreseeable, were foreseeable only as remote possibilities, those only slightly probable, are beyond and not within the circle,  in all of which time, place and circumstances play their respective and important parts. Id. at 780-81. Thus, by excluding from recovery damages from injuries which are foreseeable only as remote possibilities, Mauney calls into question the notion from M & M Pipe, which, many argue, declares such damages are indeed recoverable. ¶ 49. In reaching its decision, the Mauney Court attempted to reconcile what appears to be conflicting language from Gulf Refining Co. v. Williams, 183 Miss. 723, 185 So. 234 (1938), by stating: In [Williams], it was pointed out that in speaking of possible results as applied to foreseeability it has not been meant to include only those more apt to happen than not to happen, but embraces those which the negligent actor should have foreseen as something likely to happen, although the likelihood may not amount to a comparative probability. . . . Mauney, 9 So.2d at 781. Any fair reading of this language leads to the conclusion that, at least from the Mauney Court's perspective, the Williams Court did not equate the terms more apt to happen, likely to happen, and comparative probability. [13] ¶ 50. To complicate matters, the Mauney Court gleaned from Williams still another test for foreseeability, which states that more than a remote possibility is necessary to fulfill the requirements of the rule of liability,  that the likelihood which furnishes the essential ligament between the negligence and the injury must be one of weight and moment. Mauney, 9 So.2d at 781. ¶ 51. A more clear and concise analysis is found in Gulledge v. Shaw, 880 So.2d 288 (Miss.2004), which recognized and applied, in part, the Mauney approach. Chief Justice Smith, speaking for the Gulledge Court, stated: The fact that an injury rarely occurs, or has never happened, is insufficient to protect the actor from a finding of negligence. If some injury is to be anticipated, this Court will find liability even if the particular injury could not be foreseen. . . . However, [r]emote possibilities do not constitute negligence from the judicial standpoint. That is, we do not charge the actor with a prevision or anticipation which would include an unusual, improbable, or extraordinary occurrence, although such happening is within the range of possibilities. (citing Mauney ). Id. at 293 (citations omitted, emphasis in original). ¶ 52. Thus, we are left to reconcile the language of M & M Pipe, which would allow recovery for unforeseeable injuries (so long as some injury is foreseeable); the language of Mauney, which precludes recovery not only for unforeseeable injuries, but also for injuries which, although foreseeable, were remote possibilities; and the language of Williams, which held that foreseeable damages are those which are likely to occur, although not necessarily probable. ¶ 53. Then we must consider the considerable line of cases extending back to 1936, holding that [t]he proximate cause of an injury is that cause which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produced the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred; or, as otherwise stated, there must be an efficient causal connection between the negligence complained of and the injury, and that connection must be a natural and continuous sequence unbroken by any other cause. Thompson v. Miss. Cent. R.R. Co., 175 Miss. 547, 166 So. 353-54 (1936). Thus, the proximate-cause test announced in Thompson ignores the foreseeability inquiry altogether, and looks only to the causal connection between the negligence and the injury. ¶ 54. To confuse matters even more, this Court has quoted with approval the following provision from a legal treatise: If the actor's conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about harm to another, the fact that the actor neither foresaw nor should have foreseen the extent of the harm or the manner in which it occurred does not prevent him from being liable. Section 435, Restatement, Law of Torts. Matthews v. Thompson, 231 Miss. 258, 95 So.2d 438, 448 (1957). This Restatement analysis ignores both Mauney's foreseeability requirement and Thompson's continuous-sequence-and-causation test, and instead merely requires that the negligence be a substantial factor in bringing about the damage. ¶ 55. Finally, in Wyeth Laboratories, Inc. v. Fortenberry, this Court recognized that proximate cause in a negligence claim requires proof that the defendant's negligence was both a cause in fact and a legal cause of the plaintiff's injuries. Fortenberry, 530 So.2d 688, 691 (Miss.1988) However, the Fortenberry Court, approving the but-for approach to proximate cause, required only a finding that the negligent act caused the damage (cause in fact) and a finding that, but for the negligence, the damage wouldn't have occurred. The Fortenberry discussion of proximate cause includes no discussion of the requirement of foreseeability. Id. ¶ 56. These cases, and this Court's current view of the requirements to show proximate cause, are included in part III to this opinion.