Did Suzuki Proximately Cause McCoy’s Injuries?
Concluding that the rescue doctrine may apply to a product liability action and that the rescuer must show the defendant proximately caused his injuries,we question whether McCoy has demonstrated Suzuki proximately caused his injuries….
Here,Suzuki argues,it was totally unforeseeable that a rescuer such as Mc-Coy would be injured by a third vehicle under these particular facts and,accordingly,Suzuki asks us to rule in its favor on this issue as a matter of law.We find the issue of foreseeability of the intervening cause is sufficiently close that it should be decided by a jury,not the court.A jury might consider the position of the rescuer,the negligence of the oncoming motorist,if any,and many other factors.
McCoy cites In re Estate of Keck,71 Wash.App.105 (1993).In Keck a rescuer aided a driver who had been drinking and who caused an accident.As the rescuer escorted the driver across the highway to safety,a car approached and the rescuer had barely enough time to push the person he was rescuing to safety but was himself hit and instantly killed.The Court of Appeals allowed the decedent’s estate to bring suit against the person he was rescuing under the rescue doctrine.The court held it could not say as a matter of law whether the original accident was the proximate cause of decedent’s injuries and accordingly remanded the case for jury determination.The facts of the present case are not sufficiently different from those of Keck to take the issue from the jury.
In the present case,if the Suzuki Samurai is found to be defective the jury could find it foreseeable that the Suzuki Samurai would roll and that an approaching car would cause injury to either those in the Suzuki Samurai or to a rescuer,depending on the specific facts to be proved.We note sister jurisdictions have reached the same conclusion under similar facts….(https://www.daowen.com)
As numerous cases illustrate,the court often exercises its gatekeeper function by dismissing an action without trial for lack of legal cause if the defendant’s actions are too remote a cause of plaintiff’s injuries.In Maltman we dismissed the action,reasoning the party causing the principal accident should not be liable for the subsequent crash of a rescue helicopter hundreds of miles away because the helicopter crash was simply too remote a result of the principal accident.In Hartley [v.State,103 Wash.2d 768(1985)] the estate of a decedent killed by a drunk driver sued the State for failing to revoke the drunk driver’s license.There we similarly dismissed reasoning the State should not be held liable for injuries caused by a driver simply because the State failed to revoke that driver’s license.Such fault on the State’s behalf was again too remote a cause of the ensuing injury to impose liability.
Here,we do not find the alleged fault of Suzuki,if proved,to be so remote from these injuries that its liability should be cut off as a matter of law.Certainly the alleged fault of Suzuki is not as remote as the fault of the defendants in Maltman and Hartley and,thus,we must distinguish their results.Accordingly,we will not dismiss this case for lack of legal causation.Instead we remand the case for trial consistent with this opinion….