ABSTRACT
Studying proximate cause is like trying to decode mumbo jumbo. Courts continue to use words like direct, remote, natural and probable, foreseeable, hindsight, and intervening and superseding causes, and they make them sound like tests. They make them sound like law. Furthermore, as one test is debunked and another appears, courts continue to apply the debunked tests. They just pile on a new one as well. Then, they calm themselves and say that proximate cause is all a matter of policy. After all, Leon Green said that; William Prosser said that. It must be true. But courts fail to ever articulate any policy other than that liability cannot be unlimited. That statement is a mere truism not a guiding light for decision in particular cases …
Galligan, Thomas C, Policy and Poppycock in Proximate Cause Cases A/K/A Scope of Liability and Starting to Make Sense (February 6, 2024).
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