Court Opinion

ID: 9694360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:38:46.281514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:00.115151
License: Public Domain

SAYLOR, Justice,
concurring.
While the majority rests its disposition upon its conclusion that the doctrine of superseding cause can be applied only to third-party conduct, I note that some comparative negligence jurisdictions have continued to apply superseding cause to a narrow category of cases in which an injured plaintiffs conduct is wholly unforeseeable, amounts to more than mere negligence, and creates a risk distinct from that created by the defendant’s conduct.1 Thus, while I acknowledge the soundness of the general preference for addressing the relevance of a plaintiffs own conduct within the calculus of comparative fault, I would not foreclose the possibility that a plaintiffs conduct might be deemed a superseding cause in an appropriate case. Particularly, application of the doctrine of superseding cause would seem appropriate in a case in which a plaintiffs own intentional, unforeseeable conduct severs the *128causal connection between the defendant’s negligence and the plaintiffs injuries.
Here, however, Mr. Von der Heide’s conduct was neither intentional nor unforeseeable; therefore, I join the majority’s holding that an instruction to the jury concerning superseding cause was unwarranted.
FLAHERTY, J., joins this Concurring Opinion.

. See, e.g., Caraballo v. United States, 830 F.2d 19, 22 (2d Cir.1987) (construing New York law); Faris v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 753 F.Supp. 388, 390 (D.D.C.1991); Sumpter v. City of Moulton, 519 N.W.2d 427, 432 (Iowa Ct.App.1994) (stating that "we are not prepared to hold that the conduct of a plaintiff could never constitute a superseding cause”); see generally 57A Am Jur 2d Negligence § 650 (1989). But see Beirne v. Security Heating-Clearwater Pools Inc., 759 F.Supp. 1120, 1123 (M.D.Pa.1991) (finding that the doctrines of intervening and superseding cause are not appropriately applied to a plaintiff’s conduct).