There is a tragedy in California that has led to a particularly challenging question of proximate causation. It appears well established that Arman Samsonian, 19, was driving recklessly when he slammed his SUV into a utility pole and a fire hydrant. It was a bad combination. When two individuals ran over to help, they were both electrocuted to death by the electrified water from the hydrant in contact with a fallen wire. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Karen Nudell last week approved charges of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence for the deaths of good Samaritans, Irma Zamora (right) and Stacey Schreiber (left). The defense insists these were unforeseeable intervening acts that should not be the basis for criminal charges.
Witnesses say that Samsonian was speeding and possible street racing, but his family has denied the allegation.
After the crash, Daniel Woloszyn testified that he had pulled over to call 911. As he called, his wife, Irma Zamora, jumped out of their vehicle to help the driver. HE then got out and saw his wife lying on the ground. She was dead. As he tried to help her, he was shocked. Schreiber, 39, was then electrocuted trying to assist Samsonian.
The defense appears ready to concede that Samsonian was driving recklessly but says that the convergence of the wire and the hydrant in causing the deaths was unforeseeable. In both criminal law and torts, proximate causation concepts are used to limit liability. These manslaughter or negligent homicide charges straddle the line between criminal and tort liability. Missing is true intent to harm. The intent in found in the driving recklessly or in other cases driving under the influence. Yet, this case does present a novel question of how far that can go. Is any chain of events attributable to the defendant so long as it is directly linked to his original crime. In torts, the question is handled differently under two doctrine: Polemis and Wagon Mound. Under Polemis, any direct consequence of an act of negligence can be attributed to the defendant. In that case, a plank was negligently kicked into a ship hold that resulted in an unexpected explosion. In Wagon Mound, an English court rejected that approach and required that the harm be foreseeable. As change in harm could cut off liability in some case under Wagon Mound. Under the torts analysis, a Wagon Mound jurisdiction could cut off liability here for the deaths. After all that case involved oil passing on the surface of the water, catching fire, and burning property on the other side of a bay or port. Moreover, in torts, rescuers are foreseeable as Judge Cardozo held in Wagner v. International Railway, 232 N.Y. 176 (1926), when he held that “Danger invites rescue.”
Causation principles can be different in criminal law. However, the general concept remains one of foreseeability. Otherwise, prosecutors could daisy chain events to make out murder charges. This does not require that many daisies of course. It was foreseeable that he would do property damages and a fallen wire is certainly within that universe. However, this required a combination of the wire, the hydrant, and the rescuers. I find this a difficult case. I have qualms about extending proximate causation in such cases. Standing on the street before the accident, I would be hard pressed to foresee such a chain of events, though the fallen wire and electrocution would be within my range of possibilities. If one could foresee the fallen wire, a wet street is not too far beyond that expectation. For that reason, I can appreciate the view of the court that this is what can come from speeding on city streets.
What do you think?
Source: LA Times
This case illustrates one of the principal problems with the law of proximate cause, and more specifically with the notion of foreseeability. I am decidedly in the minority, but my view is that foreseeability analysis confuses the issue of causation, a question of fact, with the issue of duty, a question of law.
In the instant case, the negligence of the driver (if the driver was speeding or racing) produced a chain of events which directly caused the deaths of the would-be rescuers. Whether the driver could have foreseen that specific chain of events is an artificial question which bears no relationship to the fact issue of causation. The legal issue is the scope of the duty to avoid creating an unreasonable risk of injury to another. I would not hesitate in finding tort liability in this case, but whether criminal liability is appropriate depends upon whether the facts are sufficient to support the further conclusion that the actions of the driver constituted reckless indifference.
By way of disclosure, I should add that I studied tort law under Dean Leon Green, a fierce and highly persuasive critic of proximate cause.
Could this case direct responsibility of some sort to the engineering department of the local city or county where the collision occurred; since they planned and placed an infrastructure service (water pipes) in the immediate area of electrical service essentially “setting up” a scenario of this kind? This has always bothered me when I see this.
If the electric power companies had reinforced poles, or if the poles were protected by reinforced concrete, even big trucks wouldn’t knock them down. It’s the power company’s fault.
The same with the fire hydrant. The city should have them protected with reinforced concrete. It’s the city’s fault.
Besides, sticking your nose in other people’s business gets you what? They stuck their noses in and died.
Think of all the plane crashes into high-powered electric wires where pilots and passengers died. It’s the fault of the power companies for not building shields around the high wires that would let the planes simply slip around the wires rather than crash into them.
See? Almost all the time it is the fault of big business and government.