Court Opinion

ID: 9731029
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:31:06.810201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:12.415847
License: Public Domain

Brown, J.
(dissenting). Had the plaintiff’s intestate fallen and sustained her injury on her way to the faucet the first time, obviously her own act in attempting to get to it in her condition, and not fault of the defendant, would have been the cause of her injury. By her first trip to the faucet she learned that the water was shut off. Notwithstanding, she made the subsequent trips and in attempting the final one fell and was injured. Under these circumstances, as in the first situation suggested, it was not the fault of the defendant, but the intestate’s own act in making the attempt in her then condition, which was the proximate cause of her fall and injury. To paraphrase the language of the court in Perkins v. Vermont Hydro-Electric Corporation, 106 Vt. 367, 381, 177 A. 631, quoted by the majority, the defendant’s negligence was diverted by the intervention of the intestate’s own act as a conscious agent and this thus became the efficient cause which made the injury its own. It is my conclusion that for this reason the court did not err in setting aside the verdict.