Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.

Infobox New York COA case
Litigants=Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
ArgueDate=February 24
ArgueYear=1928
DecideDate=May 29
DecideYear=1928
FullName=Helen Palsgraf v. The Long Island Railroad Company
Citations=248 N.Y. 339; 162 N.E. 99; 1928 N.Y. LEXIS 1269; 59 A.L.R. 1253
Prior=Judgment for plaintiff, Kings County Supreme Court, May 31 1927; affirmed, 222 A.D. 166 (N.Y. App. Div. 1927)
Subsequent=
Holding=Defendant could not be held liable for an injury that could not be reasonably foreseen. New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, reversed and complaint dismissed.
ChiefJudge=Benjamin Cardozo
AssociateJudges=Cuthbert Pound, William S. Andrews, Frederick Crane, Irving Lehman, Henry Kellogg, John F. O'Brien
Majority=Cardozo
JoinMajority=Pound, Lehman, Kellogg
Dissent=Andrews
JoinDissent=Crane, O'Brien

"Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.", 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928), was a decision by the New York Court of Appeals (the highest state court in the New York) written by Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo, a leading figure in the development of American common law and later a Supreme Court justice. Palsgraf is a landmark in tort law that helped establish the limitations of negligence with respect to scope of liability.

Facts

A passenger carrying a package, while hurrying to catch and board a moving Long Island Rail Road train, appeared to the railroad's (Defendant's) employee to be falling. The employee attempted to help the passenger and caused a package the passenger was holding to fall on the rails. Unbeknownst to the employee, the package contained fireworks, and the employee's effort to help caused the package to explode. The shock reportedly knocked down scales at the other end of the platform (although later accounts suggest that a panicking bystander may have upset the scale), which injured Mrs. Helen Palsgraf (Plaintiff). Palsgraf sued the railroad, claiming her injury resulted from negligent acts of the employee. The trial court and the intermediate appeals court found for Palsgraf (Plaintiff) by verdict from a jury, Long Island Rail Road appealed the judgment.

Opinion of the court

The Court of Appeals (the highest court in New York) 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.

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 (ex. the Butterfly Effect).

Dissenting opinion

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."

Influence of the case

It is clear in the contrasting judgments of Benjamin N. Cardozo and William S. Andrews that the question of negligence in this case is directly relevant, firstly to the interpretation of a 'duty of care', as it may or may not have existed prior to this decision, and secondly a distinction between negligence and crime which had been somewhat blurred. There is still active debate over the two views presented in this case, with most courts preferring Cardozo's argumentation on the nature of negligence and a duty of care, but still many seeing Andrews' idea of indeterminate liability with restrictions made arbitrarily "because of convenience" as preferable.

Where Cardozo states that "the risk reasonably perceived defines the duty to be obeyed", we can draw an obvious distinction to Andrews' view that "everyone owes the world at large a duty of refraining from those acts that may unreasonably threaten the safety of others". Andrews certainly puts forward an attractive case, as one looking at negligence for the first time might naturally align themselves with such an interpretation of negligence as he describes. "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. It 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." If this view is indeed the 'language of the street' then we might wish to consider why it was not the decision of the court.

In answer to this it is necessary that we draw a distinction between negligence and crimes. According to Cardozo, “the victim does not sue derivatively, or by right of subrogation, to vindicate an interest invaded in the person of another. Thus to view his cause of action is to ignore the fundamental difference between tort and crime. He sues for breach of a duty owing to himself”. The fundamental point here being that negligence does not necessarily require 'fault' on the part of the defendant, and as such we don't look to punish the defendant. Whilst it is often the case that negligent acts may fall into categories of criminal law (such as negligent driving), this is entirely irrelevant so long as negligent acts can exist without fault, and without crime.

It is in such cases, concerned solely with the question of negligence, that we can understand why we apply a single duty of care. It is in these cases in which harm exists without fault that the law of negligence comes into its own, as a separate entity to criminal law, with a separate agenda for resolution, requiring a separate method of determining liability. In such cases we are made aware of a harm, and regardless of the notion of fault or blame as might be assessed subjectively on the part of the defendant, we decide how this harm is most fairly portioned, as between the two parties, depending on an objective standard of care. The confusion perhaps exists where fault is relevant as an indicator as to how best we might portion that harm. But portion harm we must, and to do this in a way which is fair as between both parties we have to consider what was a reasonably foreseeable result of the negligence of the defendant.

This is the reasoning behind the Palsgraf judgment and is the corollary from which cases are decided since. Not only does an all embracing view of the Duty of Care effectively create strict liability in those terms, but it also creates indeterminate liability. This is to say that if as Andrew’s suggests there is “a relationship between (the defendant) and those whom he does in fact injure”, where can we draw the line as to when the defendant’s negligence is too far detached, whether by form or distance, from the harms that might (unforeseeably) result from that initial act of negligence? In the case of Palsgraf Andrews states that limits of liability are determined “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”. He is right insofar as ‘logic this is not’; and without going into the depths of the implications of a lack of legal certainty and the insufficiency of arbitrary judgements it suffices to say that under such a system, such problems are created.

There is in fact no such need for this “rough sense of justice” in cases of negligence. We can simply apply a test whereby after establishing negligence, we go on to consider whether the claimant injured as a result of this negligence in direct or indirect terms, was injured in a way that was a reasonably foreseeable result of such an act of negligence as took place. This, it would appear is logic, in practice it remains practical, but perhaps most importantly, it negates the requirement of politics.

"Palsgraf" is standard reading for first-year tort students in law schools in many jurisdictions.

The American author William Gaddis credited his reading of the "Palsgraf" case with helping to inspire his novel "A Frolic of His Own." [ [http://www.williamgaddis.org/frolic/index.shtml Annotations to "Frolic" at williamgaddis.org.] ]

ee also

[http://www.courts.state.ny.us/history/cases/palsgraf_lirr.htm Text of the case]

References