Court Opinion

ID: 9476696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:02:36.126535+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:27.362927
License: Public Domain

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The outcome of- this decision is that Avis becomes the insurer of all that happened as a result of its initial negligence in providing a bad tire, irrespective of the probability of the intervening cause taking place. This is not the law in any civil law jurisdiction which I am familiar with, and certainly not Puerto Rico. Avis was not legally required to foresee the improbable, remote, and extraordinary intervention of a third party tortfeasor whose traffic violations were the only cause of Marshall’s injuries, i.e., Marshall was not injured by a tire explosion, he was injured by Pérez Arzuaga’s car hitting him.
Furthermore, in my view, the public policy choices as to the boundaries of liability for negligence in Puerto Rico — traditionally reserved to the judge in this civil law jurisdiction — were erroneously delegated here to the jury, thus encouraging forum shopping and possibly leading to inconsistent outcomes among state and federal cases.
I.
There is reason to believe the jury applied John Stuart Mill’s now discredited view of causation, which treats causation as the total of all the conditions of a result. See 2 Enneccerus, Tratado de Derecho Civil No. 1 at 66 (1947). “Causation, in the logical sense, is the totality of those elements indispensable for a phenomenon to take place” (translation ours). 2 Diez Picaso, Gullón, Sistema de Derecho Civil 634 (3d ed. 1982). This theory, characterized as “equivalencia de condiciones” or “conditio sine qua non,” prescribes liability when the harm would not have occurred had defendant acted prudently. See Sociedad de Gananciales v. González Padin Co., Inc., — D.P.R. -, 86 J.T.S. 23 at 4259 (1986). While “equivalencia de condiciones” remains viable today, it cannot alone justify causation under the Puerto Rico Civil Code. See M. Brau, Daños y Perjuicios Extracontractuales en Puerto Rico § 11.03[6] at 712 (2d ed. 1986).
A commentator to the Spanish Civil Code has criticized “equivalencia de condiciones”:
If all the acts are considered the cause, the field of responsibility is widened extraordinarily, requiring either the distribution of responsibility among all the possible agents of said cause or the arbitrary selection of one of them. For example: suppose an automobile crashes into a wall and the driver is injured because of an oil stain in the pavement, the brakes of the car had been improperly repaired by a mechanic, and a pedestrian had imprudently crossed the street at the time. Thus, responsibility must be distributed among the owner of the shop, the author of the oil stain, and the pedestrian or instead select arbitrarily any one of them as responsible. Either result follows from “equivalencia de condiciones” which always requires a hypothetical judgment among the factors which cannot be discarded from the mind without concluding that they produced the harm.
(Translation and emphasis ours). Sistema de Derecho Civil, supra at 634-35.
Precisely because “equivalencia de condiciones” sets no limit to the endless chain of causation, the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico has adopted the norm of “causalidad adecuada.” See Jiménez v. Pelegrina Espinet, 112 D.P.R. 700, 704-05 (1982); Sociedad de Gananciales v. Jerónimo Corp., 103 D.P.R. 127, 134 (1974). The legal and *854adequate cause is one which, objectively speaking, ordinarily produces the harm according to general experience. Santos Briz, Derecho de Daños 215 (1963).
I agree that the key to “causalidad adecuada” is foreseeability. Rivera Torres v. Cruz Corchado, — D.P.R. -, 87 J.T.S. 51 (May 20, 1987). To clarify this point, however, an event is foreseeable in terms of its probability of occurring and not its possibility. See Pacheco v. A.F.F., 112 D.P.R. 296, 300-01 (1982). Although it is possible that someone could cause plaintiff harm by reason of third party negligence, this was not probable at the time of Avis’ rental. A cause is inadequate if it has come about only because of other “extraordinary circumstances,” such as Pérez Arzuaga’s conduct in this case. See Tratado de Derecho Civil, supra at 68-69.
As applied here, the intervening negligence of Pérez Arzuaga — if unforeseeable to Avis — constitutes the sole legal cause of the harm. See 2 Puig Brutau, Fundamentos de Derecho Civil No. 3 at 101 (1983). An intervening cause is one which occurs independently from and subsequent to the negligent act of the first party (Avis), and which effectively breaks the chain of causation between that party’s negligence and the harm. Daños y Perjuicios Extracontractuales en Puerto Rico § 11.05[1] at 724-29 (1984).
II
The denial of the directed verdict motion constitutes reversible error for two reasons. First, causation — whether it be a question of fact, law or both — is for the judge to resolve in a civil law jurisdiction. See Estremera v. Inmobiliaria, Rac, Inc., 109 D.P.R. 852 (1980) (quoting 3 Castán Tobeñas, Derecho Civil Español Común y Foral 237 (1978)).12 The judge’s point of view is the “most adequate” for setting the bounds of liability, see 31 Scaevola, Código Civil 361 (2d ed. 1974), regardless of Puerto Rico’s want of expertise with juries in civil cases. Cf. Pan American World Airways v. Ramos, 357 F.2d 341, 342 (1st Cir.1966).
Yet the majority cursorily dismisses this civil law tradition in favor of a purported federal practice or right to have “disputed questions of fact” regarding foreseeability submitted to the jury.13 The point is that if this tort case had been litigated before a judge in the local courts the outcome could well have been different. However, the majority adduces no reason why the “federal interest” in having causation sent to the jury is any more important than the value of preserving uniformity of decision or why the Seventh Amendment’s right to trial by jury compels such a result. See Byrd v. Blue Ridge Cooperative, 356 U.S. 525, 537 n. 10, 78 S.Ct. 893, 901 n. 10, 2 L.Ed.2d 953 (1958) (“We intimate no view upon the constitutional question whether the right to trial by jury protected in federal courts by the Seventh Amendment embraces the factual issue of statutory immunity when asserted, as here, as an affirmative defense in a common law negligence action”); see also 19 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4508 at 126 (1982). The majority’s holding invites forum shopping and I, like the Court in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 74-75, 58 S.Ct. 817, 820, 82 L.Ed. 1188 (1938), cannot subscribe to it.
Ill
Second, even by the majority’s standards no reasonable juror could have found adequate causation. Karelitz v. Damson Oil Corp., 820 F.2d 529, 530 (1st Cir.1987). The cause of Marshall’s injuries was not *855the defective tire. The intervening and adequate cause of the injuries was the negligent driving of a third party, Pérez Arzuaga. Avis should not be held responsible for a negligent act of a third party over which it has no control. See 3 Santos Briz, Derecho Civil 577 (1973) (“responsibility should extend up to the point in which the path of causation can be directed and dominated by a person’s will”) (translation ours). Further, Avis could no more have foreseen that Pérez Arzuaga would drive recklessly and hit Marshall than it could have foreseen that Pérez Arzuaga was going to drive by, or that Marshall’s tires were going to go soft where they did. Would Avis be responsible if instead of being hit by Pérez Arzuaga, Marshall had been held up by Pérez Arzuaga? I think not because the risk of robbery, as the risk of reckless driving, is not an ordinary, usual, and foreseeable risk of a car rental company’s negligence. See Rivera Torres, supra; Negrón v. Noriega, — D.P.R. -, 86 J.T.S. 75 (1986); see also Estremera, 109 D.P.R. at 856-57; Jacob v. Eagle Star Insurance Co., 640 F.Supp. 117, 119 (D.P.R.1986) (applying Puerto Rico substantive law).
The only way for a jury to hold Avis responsible for Pérez Arzuaga’s intervening conduct is by applying “equivalencia de condiciones” and hence concluding that anything that can happen after a tire blowout is “foreseeable” by Avis. Yet under the current doctrine of “causalidad adecuada” it is not probable that because you have a flat tire you will be run over by a reckless driver. It is possible but not probable. When we get into the realm of possibilities rather than probabilities we are in the area of speculation. This then leads to the “deep pocket” theory of recovery and converts Avis into an insurer. See Daños y Perjuicios Extracontractuales en Puerto Rico § 11.03[6](c) at 713.
I respectfully dissent.

. In the Sentence of 5 June 1944, the Supreme Court of Spain held that causation was a quaestio juris. See Derecho Civil Español Común y Foral, supra at 236 n. 1. But Manresa, in 12 Comentarios al Código Civil Español 855 (1973), quotes from a Sentence of 30 January 1951 to the effect that causation is one of "pure fact." See also Código Civil, supra at 361. While this debate may be of import to the standard of judicial review, it does not alter the fact that the trial judge decides the issue.

. The "federal practice” is not without its critics. See Prosser and Keeton on Torts § 45 at 319 (5th ed. 1984) (quoting Green, Rationale of Proximate Cause 122-27 (1927) ("... the limitations to be imposed upon liability are always a matter for the court”)).