Killer Shrimp
As my Torts exam approaches, it’s good to see that all this proximate cause stuff is useful in the real world:
A piece of grilled shrimp flung playfully by a Japanese hibachi chef toward a tableside diner is being blamed for causing the man’s death.
Making a proximate-cause argument, the lawyer for the deceased man’s estate has alleged that the man’s reflexive response — to duck away from the flying food — caused a neck injury that required surgery.
Complications from that first operation necessitated a second procedure. Five months later, Jerry Colaitis of Old Brookville, N.Y., was dead of an illness that his family claims was proximately caused by the injury.
But for the food-flinging incident at the Benihana restaurant in Munsey Park, N.Y., Colaitis would still be alive, attorney Andre Ferenzo asserts.
Check out the full article at law.com. It just gets funnier.
When I mentioned the case to Professor Popper after last night’s class, he replied, “Sounds like an exam question.”
Yours truly,
Mr. X
…beware the flying prawn…
If a butterfly in Asia flaps its wings. . .
“Experience has shown that, contrary to the expectation of the Dillon majority, and with apology to Bernard Witkin, there are clear judicial days on which a court can foresee forever and thus determine liability but none on which that foresight alone provides a socially and judicially acceptable limit on recovery of damages for that injury.” Thing v. La Chusa, 48 Cal.3d 644, 668 (1989). (emphasis added)
Yours truly,
Mr. X
…study buddy…