The element everyone forgets to prove in negligence

A careless act that injures someone is not automatically negligence. Miss one element and the whole claim collapses.

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A guard shoves a passenger to help him board. The man drops fireworks, they explode, and scales at the far end of the platform fall and injure Mrs. Palsgraf. Careless act, real injury. She wins?

Not so fast. A careless act plus an injury isn't negligence.

Why not? That sounds like the definition.

She has to prove four things. The guard's carelessness only touches one.

Name the four.

Duty, breach, causation, damages.

Which are easy here?

Breach is the careless push. Damages, the injury. The case dies on the other two.

⚠ Trap

But everyone owes a duty to be careful. Isn't that automatic?

That's the trap the majority refused. Duty runs only to foreseeable plaintiffs.

Foreseeable meaning?

In the zone of danger. Cardozo held the guard couldn't foresee harm to someone standing yards away.

So as to her?

No duty ever arose. However sloppy the push looked.

Grant a duty, for argument. Does causation save her?

Still no. But-for cause might be met: no push, no explosion, no injury.

So what's the wall?

Proximate cause. The law won't stretch to a harm this bizarre and attenuated.

Because?

The type of harm wasn't a foreseeable result of the act.

So state the principle a grader wants.

Carelessness is necessary but never sufficient.

Meaning?

Without a duty to this plaintiff and a proximate link to this harm, negligence fails, however sloppy the conduct.

↑ answer it in your head first ↑

the mistakes this catches

Traps

⚠ Assuming a careless act plus an injury equals liability. Without duty and causation, there is no negligence.
⚠ Treating foreseeability as a matter for the jury only. Palsgraf makes duty a question of the relationship, decided by the court.
⚠ Confusing actual cause ("but-for") with proximate cause. Both must be shown; passing one does not satisfy the other.

test yourself, tap to flip

Flash drills

1 What are the four elements of a negligence claim? tap →

Duty, breach, causation (actual and proximate), and damages. All four must be proven; the absence of any one defeats the claim.

2 What did Palsgraf establish about duty? tap →

A defendant owes a duty only to foreseeable plaintiffs within the zone of danger. If the harm to this plaintiff was unforeseeable, no duty arose and there is no negligence, however careless the act.

3 How does proximate cause differ from actual cause? tap →

Actual cause is but-for causation, the injury would not have happened without the act. Proximate cause limits liability to harms whose type was a foreseeable result, cutting off freak or attenuated consequences.

4 Why can a defendant breach a standard of care and still not be liable? tap →

Because breach is only one element. If the plaintiff was unforeseeable (no duty) or the harm was not proximately caused, the claim fails despite the careless conduct.

⟳ These drills come back on a spaced schedule. Review →

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