Opinion ID: 766109
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Concept In General

Text: 19 Any discussion of proximate cause should be approached with some trepidation because, as a scholarly treatise teaches, no topic is subject to more disagreement or such confusion. Proximate cause is an elusive concept, one always to be determined on the facts of each case upon mixed considerations of logic, common sense, justice, policy and precedent. W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser & Keeton on The Law of Torts, §42, at 279 (5th ed. 1984) (quoting 1 Street, Foundations of Legal Liability, 110 (1906)). In everyday terms, the concept might be explained as follows: Because the consequences of an act go endlessly forward in time and its causes stretch back to the dawn of human history, proximate cause is used essentially as a legal tool for limiting a wrongdoer's liability only to those harms that have a reasonable connection to his actions. The law has wisely determined that it is futile to trace the consequences of a wrongdoer's actions to their ultimate end, if end there is. 20 The notion of limiting liability is well-accepted; it is its application to a given case that is more troublesome. The dictionary definition of the word proximate provides little assistance in this regard, limited as it is to such broad synonyms as very near, immediately, adjoining, close. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1828 (1981). 21