PALSGRAF v. LONG ISLAND R. CO. [FN*]
Court of Appeals of New York. 1928
Plaintiff was standing on a platform of defendant's railroad after buying a ticket to go to Rockaway Beach. A train stopped at the station, bound for another place. Two men ran forward to catch it. One of the men reached the platform of the car without mishap, though the train was already moving. The other man, carrying a package, jumped aboard the car, but seemed unsteady as if about to fall. A guard on the car, who had held the door open, reached forward to help *341 him in, and another guard on the platform pushed him from behind. In this act, the package was dislodged, and fell upon the rails. It was a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was covered by a newspaper. In fact it contained fireworks, but there was nothing in its appearance to give notice of its contents. The fireworks when they fell exploded. The shock of the explosion threw down some scales at the other end of the platform many feet away. The scales struck the plaintiff, causing injuries for which she sues.
Cardozo, writing for three other judges, wrote that there was no way that the guard could have known that the package wrapped in newspaper was dangerous, and that pushing the passenger would thereby cause an explosion. The court wrote that "there was nothing in the situation to suggest to the most cautious mind that the parcel wrapped in newspaper would spread wreckage through the station. If the guard had thrown it down knowingly and willfully, he would not have threatened the plaintiff's safety, so far as appearances could warn him." Without any perception that one's actions could harm someone, there could be no duty towards that person, and therefore no negligence for which to impose liability.
The court also stated that whether the guard had acted negligently to the passenger he pushed was irrelevant for her claim, because the only negligence that a person can sue for is a wrongful act that violates their own rights. Palsgraf could not sue the guard for pushing the other passenger because that act did not violate a duty to her, as is required for liability under a negligence theory. It is not enough for a plaintiff to merely claim an injury. "If the harm was not willful, he must show that the act as to him had possibilities of danger so many and apparent as to entitle him to be protected against the doing of it though the harm was unintended."
This concept of foreseeability in tort law tends to limit liability to the consequences of an act that could reasonably be foreseen rather than every single consequence that follows. Otherwise, liability could be unlimited in scope, as causes never truly cease having effects far removed in time and space.
ANDREWS, J. (dissenting).
Assisting a passenger to board a train, the defendant's servant negligently knocked a package from his arms. It fell between the platform and the cars. Of its contents the servant knew and could know nothing. A violent explosion followed. The concussion broke some scales **102 standing a considerable distance away. In falling, they injured the plaintiff, an intending passenger.
Upon these facts, may she recover the damages she has suffered in an action brought against the master? The result we shall reach depends upon our theory as to the nature of negligence. Is it a relative concept--the breach of some duty owing to a particular person or to particular persons? Or, where there is an act which unreasonably threatens the safety of others, is the doer liable for all its proximate consequences, even where they result in injury to one who would generally be thought to be outside the radius of danger? This is not a mere dispute as to words. We might not believe that to the average mind the dropping of the bundle would seem to involve the probability of harm to the plaintiff standing many feet away whatever might be the case as to the owner or to one so near as to be likely to be struck by its fall. If, however, we adopt the second hypothesis, *348 we have to inquire only as to the relation between cause and effect. We deal in terms of proximate cause, not of negligence.
Negligence may be defined roughly as an act or omission which unreasonably does or may affect the rights of others, or which unreasonably fails to protect one's self from the dangers resulting from such acts. Here I confine myself to the first branch of the definition. Nor do I comment on the word 'unreasonable.' For present purposes it sufficiently describes that average of conduct that society requires of its members.
There must be both the act or the omission, and the right. It is the act itself, not the intent of the actor, that is important. Hover v. Barkhoof, 44 N. Y. 113; Mertz v. Connecticut Co., 217 N. Y. 475, 112 N. E. 166. In criminal law both the intent and the result are to be considered. Intent again is material in tort actions, where punitive damages are sought, dependent on actual malice--not one merely reckless conduct. But here neither insanity nor infancy lessens responsibility. Williams v. Hays, 143 N. Y. 442, 38 N. E. 449, 26 L. R. A. 153, 42 Am. St. Rep. 743.
As has been said, except in cases of contributory negligence, there must be rights which are or may be affected. Often though injury has occurred, no rights of him who suffers have been touched. A licensee or trespasser upon my land has no claim to affirmative care on my part that the land be made safe. Meiers v. Fred Koch Brewery, 229 N. Y. 10, 127 N. E. 491, 13 A. L. R. 633. Where a railroad is required to fence its tracks against cattle, no man's rights are injured should he wander upon the road because such fence is absent. Di Caprio v. New York Cent. R. Co., 231 N. Y. 94, 131 N. E. 746, 16 A. L. R. 940. An unborn child may not demand immunity from personal harm. Drobner v. Peters, 232 N. Y. 220, 133 N. E. 567, 20 A. L. R. 1503.
But we are told that 'there is no negligence unless there is in the particular case a legal duty to take care, and this duty must be not which is owed to the plaintiff *349 himself and not merely to others.' Salmond Torts (6th Ed.) 24. This I think too narrow a conception. Where there is the unreasonable act, and some right that may be affected there is negligence whether damage does or does not result. That is immaterial. Should we drive down Broadway at a reckless speed, we are negligent whether we strike an approaching car or miss it by an inch. The act itself is wrongful. If is a wrong not only to those who happen to be within the radius of danger, but to all who might have been there--a wrong to the public at large. Such is the language of the street. Such the language of the courts when speaking of contributory negligence. Such again and again their language in speaking of the duty of some defendant and discussing proximate cause in cases where such a discussion is wholly irrelevant on any other theory. Perry v. Rochester Line Co., 219 N. Y. 60, 113 N. E. 529, L. R. A. 1917B, 1058. As was said by Mr. Justice Holmes
. The Court of Appeals reversed and dismissed Palsgraf's complaint, deciding that the relationship of the guard's action to Palsgraf's injury was too indirect to make him liable.The three-judge dissent, written by Judge Andrews, by contrast, saw the case as a matter of proximate cause—Palsgraf's injury could be immediately traced to the wrong committed by the guard, and the fact of the wrong and the fact of the injury should be enough to find negligence.
The dissent took note of recent expansions in New York state tort law, that allowed children to sue for the wrongful death of a parent, and spouses for loss of consortium; arguing that these expansions were based on the fact of injury beyond the foreseen injury of the deceased, and on the needs of public policy. "What we do mean by the word 'proximate' is, that because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point. This is not logic. It is practical politics."