Death of man struck by train leads to 'bizarre' civil case (Injury by flying body parts!)

The Chicago Tribune ^ | December 29, 2011 | Steve Schmadeke

[trumandogz]

“So now standing by the wayside minding your own business is “doing something stupid?””

No, but running in front of a speeding train is stupid.

[Scoutmaster]

No.

One of the most famous tort/negligence/proximate cause cases of all time - that any lawyer or law student knows by name - is Palsgraf. I had to cheat and look up the cite: Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. , 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928.

Without going into specifics (and if I remember correctly), a man carrying a package was running to catch a train, and the worker from the train reached out to give him a hand. The man dropped the package. It contained fireworks. Sparks from the train wheels ignited a firework. It struck a scale on the platform, knocking it over, and a bystander was seriously injured or killed by the falling scale.

Was the railroad liable?

Yeah. That Palsgraf Benjamin Cardozo wrote the opinion. Yeah. *That* Benjamin Cardozo. Should your employee have known that trying to help the man may cause him to drop the package that might contain fireworks that may ignite, which might knock over a scale, which could injure someone?

And now we have this?

The law comes full circle.

And you can even buy a Palsgraf t-shirt for your favorite attorney or law student, in several choices of color, with this design:

[thecodont]

Looks like the Illinois Court adopted the reasoning of the dissent in the Palsgraf case.

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/history/cases/palsgraf_lirr.htm

[BigEdLB]

I understand she is suing for an arm and a leg.

Especially if the dead guy's arm and leg ended up in her purse.

[Scoutmaster]

Wait. It wasn't 'should have known,' but 'was helping the man aboard the proximate cause of Mrs. Palsgraf's injuries?" if I remember correctly.

It's been a while, but this is one of the key cases you'll have in law school regarding negligence.

I suspect it didn't matter to Mrs. Palsgraf whether it was fireworks or body parts.

[CedarDave]

Was the railroad liable?

Yes or no? Your post is not clear.

[WOBBLY BOB]

she should sue Willie Green.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

“Hey Now!....tip your waitresses people...I’ll be here all week.”

Try the veal!

[meatloaf]

I wonder of there’s insurance for that liability.

[ConorMacNessa]

Cardozo, writing the majority opinion holding the railroad was not liable, relied on the foreseeability doctrine. Andrews, writing for the dissent, argued that the railroad should be liable on the basis that the employee's action, pushing the passenger onto the railroad car, was the proximate cause of Palsgraf's injury.

Etiam non princeps sed usque ad genua, Principis Pacis!

[DainBramage]

Sometimes with a jury you just have to get your foot in the door.

A guy cant just go throwing his weight around....

[Scoutmaster]

Yep. You have to realize this was a novel idea at the time, and the opinion is so well written, which is why the case is so famous that it's still taught.

Basically, Cardozo said: "Hey, at some point, people (and companies) are only responsible for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their actions, and not for every possible thing that could happen in a parade of horribles."

It was a conservative view compared to the dissent by Andrews - and, of course, when you talk about commerce, there's the doctrine of strict products liability. And with any legal concept, there are exceptions. And exceptions to the exceptions. And exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions. And . . .

Incidentally, Cardozo wrote for the New York Court of Appeals. That's the highest state court in New York, not the Supreme Court, which often confuses people. In New York, the Supreme Court is a trial court.

[Larry Lucido]

When I started law school, I thought Palsgraff was the name of a local brewery.

[Scoutmaster]

Eh. You take your time to craft a post and all of these other smarties are faster with the button. Sorry to over-Palsgraf everybody. There weren’t any Palsgrafian comments when I started writing. But was it foreseeable that somebody would beat me to the punch? Perhaps we should apply the reasoning in Palsgraf . . .

[Moltke]

Basically, Cardozo said: "Hey, at some point, people (and companies) are only responsible for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their actions, and not for every possible thing that could happen in a parade of horribles."

That would explain the lack of courtroom scenes in the Final Destination movie series.

[Larry Lucido]

I kind of like this modern day (more or less) re-enactment of Palsgraf (Cosmo Kramer on the tennis courts).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxoQm9kcELQ

[Scoutmaster]

I kind of like this modern day (more or less) re-enactment of Palsgraf (Cosmo Kramer on the tennis courts).

Respectfully, if, when Kramer had fallen, he had spilled a bag of popcorn; a pigeon had swooped onto the court; a small, leashed dog in the stands had lunged for the pigeon; the woman holding the leash was abruptly jostled, causing her to spill an iced drink in the lap of the man sitting next to her; the man had an undiagnosed medical condition which caused him to be hypersensitive to cold in the 'groinal' region; his spasmodic temperature-induce twitching caused his steel-toed size 12 Oxfords to strike the propellor-topped beanie on the head of the boy in front of him, spinning it; and the beanie helicopter-ed into the air, hitting the microphone of the broadcaster in the open-fronted third-level booth, knocking the mic into his mouth and choking him; and as his broadcasting partner performed the Heimlich maneuver, he had a Post-Traumatic Stress related flashback to a first-lieutenant's too-large-spoonful of dried-chipped-beef-on-toast in a dining fly in a small compound in Istanbul, causing the partner permanent to lose his ability to speak and his livelihood and to sue the manufacturer of the tennis ball machine? ~

~ now that's Palsgraf.

[thecodont]

~ now that's Palsgraf.

Sort of the legal version of a Rube Goldberg contraption!

[martin_fierro]

lulz

[goat granny]

That is so sick............but funny...