hard · LSAT Reading Comprehension
In tort law, a plaintiff must establish not only that the defendant's conduct was a cause-in-fact of an injury but also that it was the 'proximate cause.' Cause-in-fact asks whether the harm would have occurred 'but for' the defendant's act. Proximate cause, by contrast, is a policy-driven limitation: even where an act sets a chain of events in motion, liability extends only to harms that were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the conduct. When the connection between the act and the ultimate injury is so attenuated, or the intervening events so freakish, that no reasonable person would have anticipated them, courts hold that proximate cause is lacking and the defendant escapes liability. The doctrine thus prevents a negligent actor from being held responsible for every remote and bizarre outcome that can be traced, however indirectly, to the original act.
Based on the passage's logic, which of the following defendants would most likely escape liability due to a lack of proximate cause?
- A person leaves a small candle burning near a window; a bird flies into the window, shattering the glass, a shard of which severs a power line blocks away.
- A driver exceeds the posted speed limit and, while speeding through an intersection, strikes a pedestrian lawfully crossing within a clearly marked crosswalk.
- A restaurant server carelessly spills a full glass of water onto the floor, and a nearby patron promptly slips and falls hard on the newly wetted tile.
- A homeowner negligently fails to salt an icy front sidewalk, and an arriving delivery person slips on the ice and badly breaks an arm at the front door.
- A factory negligently stores open containers of flammable solvents, and a carelessly discarded cigarette ignites them, burning the adjacent warehouse.
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