Opinion ID: 2615017
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence to support a supervening cause instruction

Text: A person is not generally deemed liable at common law for a third party's deliberate act. [36] A third person's intentional tort is a supervening cause of the harm that results  even if the actor's negligent conduct created a situation that presented the opportunity for the tort to be committed  unless the actor realizes or should realize the likelihood that the third person might commit the tortious act. [37] A negligent actor is not bound to anticipate another's wrongful act after the latter has discovered the danger that arises from the former's negligence. [38] Lapse of time or other reason  such as, e.g., the third person's discovery of the original actor's negligence or the former's deliberate assumption of control of the situation  may cause the duty to prevent harm to another, threatened by the original actor's negligent conduct, to shift from that actor to the third person. When this happens the third person's failure to prevent the threatened harm may be a supervening cause. [39] Our three-prong test for supervening cause governs the wrongful death claim. There must be proof tending to show that the child's injury and death resulted from the mother's sexual conduct intended to bring about conception that was (1) not reasonably foreseable to the doctors, (2) independent of the doctor's substandard conduct and (3) adequate of itself to bring about the result. [40] 1.