Opinion ID: 1715018
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: instruction on efficient intervening cause disapproved

Text: Because this matter is remanded for a new trial, we conclude that it is appropriate to consider whether or not sufficient reasons exist for trial courts to continue to instruct lay juries regarding the concept of efficient intervening cause. The granting of an efficient intervening cause instruction in the instant case typifies the confusion that persists when the concept of efficient intervening cause, often referred to as superseding cause, is treated as separate from that of proximate cause. For the following reasons, we determine that the practice of instructing juries regarding efficient intervening cause should henceforth be discontinued by the trial courts of this state. In order to succeed in an action based on negligence, the plaintiff must establish the defendant's duty not to injure the plaintiff, breach of that duty, proximate causation, and damages. Ackles v. Luttrell, 252 Neb. 273, 561 N.W.2d 573 (1997). Thus, one essential element of a plaintiff's cause of action is that there be some reasonable connection between the negligent act of the defendant and the damage suffered by the plaintiff. See W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 41 (5th ed.1984). In Nebraska, a defendant's negligence is not actionable unless it is a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries or is a cause that proximately contributed to them. Kudlacek v. Fiat S.p.A., supra . Generally, a superseding or intervening cause is an act of a third person or other force which by its intervention prevents the actor from being liable for harm to another which his antecedent negligence is a substantial factor in bringing about. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 440 at 465 (1965). We have defined an efficient intervening cause as a new and independent act, itself a proximate cause of an injury, which breaks the causal connection between the original wrong and the injury. Behm v. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co., 241 Neb. 838, 491 N.W.2d 334 (1992); Shahan v. Hilker, 241 Neb. 482, 488 N.W.2d 577 (1992). However, intervening cause itself is a highly unsatisfactory term. See Keeton et al., supra, § 44 at 302. Instead, the question of efficient intervening causation is, in essence, one of proximate causation. The concepts of negligence and proximate cause are sufficient to encompass notions of efficient intervening causation without the attendant confusion. First, the concept of efficient intervening cause is subsumed by our concepts of proximate cause and concurrent cause. A proximate cause is a cause that produces a result in a natural and continuous sequence, and without which the result would not have occurred. See Union Pacific RR. Co. v. Kaiser Agricultural Chem. Co., 229 Neb. 160, 425 N.W.2d 872 (1988). Where separate and independent acts of negligence by different persons combine to produce a single injury, each participant is liable for the damage, although one of them alone could not have caused the result. Miles v. Box Butte County, 241 Neb. 588, 489 N.W.2d 829 (1992). Furthermore, if the effects of a defendant's negligence actively and continuously operate to bring about harm to another, the fact that the active negligence of a third person is also a substantial factor in bringing about the harm does not protect the defendant from liability. Kudlacek v. Fiat S.p.A., 244 Neb. 822, 509 N.W.2d 603 (1994). Accordingly, the trier of fact in the instant case, in determining whether the actions of Carothers and Zahm were the proximate cause of Sacco's injuries, must necessarily determine whether or not an intervening cause had broken the causal chain. In order to find that Carothers' alleged negligence was the proximate cause of Sacco's injury, the jury would have to find that no other new and independent cause (as opposed to one set in motion by or flowing from the first act) was the proximate cause of the injury. To instruct the jury as to efficient intervening cause under these circumstances serves only to confuse the issues properly raised in the case. When the concept of intervening or superseding cause is properly addressed in jury instructions as a part of the plaintiff's proof of proximate or concurring cause, a separate instruction on efficient intervening cause is confusing to lay jurors and distracts the jurors from a more direct assessment of whether the defendant's actions have proximately caused the plaintiff's injury. This is both the appropriate time and appropriate case, see Mundt v. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co., 230 Neb. 192, 197, 430 N.W.2d 530, 533 (1988), to instruct the trial courts to discontinue the practice of separately instructing juries on efficient intervening cause in favor of the more direct and clear instructions based on the concept of proximate or concurring cause, depending on the facts of a particular case. See Vredeveld v. Clark, 244 Neb. 46, 504 N.W.2d 292 (1993) (Lanphier, J., concurring, joined by White, J.) (citing, e.g., NJI2d Civ. 3.41, NJI2d Civ. 3.42, and NJI2d Civ. 3.44, as suggested by the Nebraska Supreme Court Committee on Civil Practice and Procedure). The trial courts are so instructed.