Derdiarian v.Felix Contracting Corp.
New York Court of Appeals,1980
51 N.Y.2d 308,434 N.Y.S.2d 166
[Defendant Felix Contracting Corporation,in performing a contract to install an underground gas main in Mount Vernon,N.Y.,had excavated a worksite in the street.Plaintiff Derdiarian,employee of a subcontractor,was engaged in sealing a gas main.]
COOKE,CHIEF JUDGE.… On the afternoon of November 21,1973,defendant James Dickens suffered an epileptic seizure and lost consciousness,allowing his vehicle to careen into the work site and strike plaintiff with such force as to throw him into the air.When plaintiff landed,he was splattered over his face,head and body with 400 degree boiling hot liquid enamel from a kettle struck by the automobile.The enamel was used in connection with sealing the gas main.Although plaintiff’s body ignited into a fire ball,he miraculously survived the incident.
At trial,plaintiff’s theory was that defendant Felix had negligently failed to take adequate measures to insure the safety of workers on the excavation site….
To support his claim of an unsafe work site,plaintiff called as a witness Lawrence Lawton,an expert in traffic safety.According to Lawton,the usual and accepted method of safeguarding the workers is to erect a barrier around the excavation.Such a barrier,consisting of a truck,a piece of heavy equipment or a pile of dirt,would keep a car out of the excavation and protect workers from oncoming traffic.The expert testified that the barrier should cover the entire width of the excavation.He also stated that there should have been two flagmen present,rather than one,and that warning signs should have been posted advising motorists that there was only one lane of traffic and that there was a flagman ahead.
… Defendant Felix now argues that plaintiff was injured in a freakish accident,brought about solely by defendant Dickens’ negligence,and therefore there was no causal link,as a matter of law,between Felix’ breach of duty and plaintiff’s injuries.(https://www.daowen.com)
The concept of proximate cause,or more appropriately legal cause,has proven to be an elusive one,incapable of being precisely defined to cover all situations….
Where the acts of a third person intervene between the defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s injury,the causal connection is not automatically severed.In such a case,liability turns upon whether the intervening act is a normal or foreseeable consequence of the situation created by the defendant’s negligence.If the intervening acts extraordinary under the circumstances,not foreseeable in the normal course of events,or independent of or far removed from the defendant’s conduct,it may well be a superseding act which breaks the causal nexus.Because questions concerning what is foreseeable and what is normal may be the subject of varying inferences,as is the question of negligence itself,these issues generally are for the fact finder to resolve.
There are certain instances,to be sure,where only one conclusion may be drawn from the established facts and where the question of legal cause may be decided as a matter of law.Those cases generally involve independent interven-ing acts which operate upon but do not flow from the original negligence.Thus,for instance,we have held that where an automobile lessor negligently supplies a car with a defective trunk lid,it is not liable to the lessee who,while stopped to repair the trunk,was injured by the negligent driving of a third party.Although the renter’s negligence undoubtedly served to place the injured party at the site of the accident,the intervening act was divorced from and not the foreseeable risk associated with the original negligence.And the injuries were different in kind than those which would have normally been expected from a defective trunk.In short,the negligence of the renter merely furnished the occasion for an unrelated act to cause injuries not ordinarily anticipated.
By contrast,in the present case,we cannot say as a matter of law that defendant Dickens’ negligence was a superseding cause which interrupted the link between Felix’ negligence and plaintiff’s injuries.From the evidence in the record,the jury could have found that Felix negligently failed to safeguard the excavation site.A prime hazard associated with such dereliction is the possibility that a driver will negligently enter the work site and cause injury to a worker.That the driver was negligent,or even reckless,does not insulate Felix from liability.Nor is it decisive that the driver lost control of the vehicle through a negligent failure to take medication,rather than a driving mistake.The precise manner of the event need not be anticipated.The finder of fact could have concluded that the foreseeable,normal and natural result of the risk created by Felix was the injury of a worker by a car entering the improperly protected work area.An intervening act may not serve as a superseding cause,and relieve an actor of responsibility,where the risk of the intervening act occurring is the very same risk which renders the actor negligent.
In a similar vein,plaintiff’s act of placing the kettle on the west side of the excavation does not,as a matter of law,absolve defendant Felix of responsibility.Serious injury,or even death,was a foreseeable consequence of a vehicle crashing through the work area.The injury could have occurred in numerous ways,ranging from a worker being directly struck by the car to the car hitting an object that injures the worker.Placement of the kettle,or any object in the work area,could affect how the accident occurs and the extent of injuries.That defendant could not anticipate the precise manner of the accident or the exact extent of injuries,however,does not preclude liability as a matter of law where the general risk and character of injuries are foreseeable….
For the foregoing reasons,the order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed,with costs.