Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. , 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928), is a prominent case in the law of the American lawsuit concerning the accountability of unexpected plaintiffs. The case was heard by the New York Appellate Court, the highest court in New York; his opinion was written by Chief Justice Benjamin Cardozo, a prominent figure in the development of American common law and then the judge of the United States Supreme Court.
The plaintiff, Helen Palsgraf, was waiting at the Long Island Rail Road station in August 1924 while carrying his daughter to the beach. Two people tried to get on the train in front of him; one (aided by a railroad employee) dropped an exploding packet, causing a large scale coin-operated platform to hit it. After the incident, he began to stammer, and then sued the railroad tracks, on the grounds that his employees had been negligent while assisting the man, and that he had been harmed by his negligence. In May 1927 he obtained a jury verdict of $ 6,000, which was demanded by the railroad company. Palsgraf got a 3-2 decision in the Appeals Division, and the train appealed again. Cardozo wrote for the 4-3 majority of the Court of Appeals, which ruled that there was no negligence because the employee, in assisting the board of directors, had no obligation to care for Palsgraf because injury to him was not a predictable danger of helping a man with a package. The original jury decision was canceled, and the train won the case.
A number of factors, including the strange facts and the remarkable reputation of Cardozo, make this case stand out in the legal profession, and remain so, taught to most, if not all, American law students in torts classes. Cardozo's conception, that the liability of the lawsuit only occurred when the defendant violated the defendant's obligation of care because the plaintiff, causing the injury demanded, was widely accepted in American law. In dealing with the immediate cause, many countries have taken the approach of the dissidents of Court of Appeals at Palsgraf, Judge William S. Andrews.
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At the time of the New York Appeals Court decision in 1928 at Palsgraf, the country's case law followed the classical formation due to negligence: the plaintiff must point out that the Long Island Railroad ("LIRR" or "" train ") has a maintenance duty , and that he was wounded for a breach of the duty.Not required that he indicate that the duty should be paid to him.Under the precedent of New York, the most commonly cautious task that the train as a public transport owes its customers does not apply to platforms and other parts from the station.
Fact
Sunday, August 24, 1924, was a warm summer day in Brooklyn, and Helen Palsgraf, a 40-year-old housekeeper and housekeeper, brought her two daughters Elizabeth and Lillian, aged 15 and 12, to Rockaway Beach. After paying the necessary fees, they were on the platform at the East New York LIRR station on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, when trains, not their trains, were pulled in. When it started to move again, two people raced to take the train, and that made it without incident, because the doors were not closed. The other, a man carrying a pack, jumped on the boat, with the help of a platform guard pushed him from behind when a member of the train crew pulled him into the car. But in the process, the man lost the packet, which fell and exploded, as it contained fireworks. Either the force of the explosion or the panic of the people on the platform led to a coin-operated, high scale to be rolled into Helen Palsgraf. No one was hurt enough to spend the night at the hospital, although some people, Palsgraf among them, were listed as wounded.
Contemporary accounts and court witnesses describe the man as an Italian appearance, and there is speculation that the package was taken for use on such an Italian-American celebration; no attempt was made to identify the owner. Palsgraf injury is listed on The New York Times as a surprise; he also suffered bruises. The distance between Helen Palsgraf and the explosion is never explained in the trial transcript, or in the opinion of the judges who decide the case, but the distance from the explosion to the scale is depicted in the Times as "more than ten meters" (3 meters ). A few days after the incident, he developed a bad stutter, and his doctor testified at the trial that it was because of the trauma of events at the East New York station. He has not recovered from stuttering when the case comes to court.
Trial
Palsgraf brought a lawsuit against railroads at the Supreme Court of New York, Kings County, court-level court, in Brooklyn on October 2, 1924. The call was filed the following month, and the defendant submitted the answer on 3 December. The case was heard on 24 and 25 May 1927, with Burt Judge Jay Humphrey presiding. Humphrey has served for more than twenty years in county courts in Queens before being unexpectedly nominated for election to the Supreme Court in 1925; he is famous for his polite and friendly manner. Manhattan lawyers tried the Brooklyn case: Matthew W. Wood, who works from 233 Broadway (Woolworth Building) representing Palsgraf, while Joseph F. Keany, whose office is in Pennsylvania Station, is for the train, along with William McNamara. Wood is an experienced solo practitioner with two titles from an Ivy League school; Keany has been in charge of the LIRR's legal department for twenty years - McNamara, who tried the case, is one of the department's junior lawyers, who has advanced from scribe to advisor after graduating from law school. In the trial, Palsgraf testified that he had been hit alongside the scale, and had been treated at the scene, and then took a taxi home. He testified to shaking later for a few days, and then stuttering began. His health forced him to let go of his work in the middle of 1926. Wood was named Herbert Gerhardt, an engraver, who had seen the man with a hasty pack on the train, and whose wife was beaten in the stomach for his rush. He testified that the scale had been "blown up to pieces".
On the second day of the trial, Wood called Dr. Karl A. Parshall, doctor of Palsgraf. He testified that he had treated Palsgraf occasionally for minor ailments before the incident in East New York, but the day after he found him shaken and bruised. He gave it as his opinion that Palsgraf's disease was caused by the accident. Grace Gerhardt, Herbert's wife, is the next witness. He testified to being hit by one of the "two young Italians" who raced to make trains, and how people made it without help and the others only with the help of two LIRR employees. He did not say anything about the scale or Palsgraf, for not seeing both. Elizabeth and Lillian Palsgraf, the eldest daughter and the younger of the plaintiffs, are on the side to testify and talk about what they have witnessed. Wood indicated that the only remaining witnesses were a neurologist, expert witness, and McNamara for the LIRR who moved to refuse the case on the grounds that Palsgraf had failed to present evidence of negligence, but Judge Humphrey denied it. The neurologist, Graeme M. Hammond of Manhattan, had examined Palsgraf two days earlier, observing his stutter, speaking only with difficulty. She told him about depression and headaches. He diagnoses it with traumatic hysteria, where the explosion is a plausible cause, and says the hysteria is likely to continue throughout the litigation, because only once it is resolved is the concerns associated with it will likely vanish.
Wood submitted his case on behalf of the plaintiff; McNamara offered no evidence but once again moved to fire, which Humphrey rejected. The judge told the jury all the men that if the LIRR employees "are omitted to do the things done by a wise and careful coach for the safety of those who board their trains, as well as the safety of those standing on the platform waiting for other trains, and that the defendant caused the plaintiff's injury, the defendant will be responsible. "The jury went out for two hours and 35 minutes, including lunch hour, and they gave Palsgraf $ 6,000 ($ 84,500 today). Under the law, he also recovered the $ 142 fee, the amount added to the verdict. A motion for a new court was rejected on May 27, 1927 by Judge Humphrey, who did not issue a written opinion, and the verdict entered the verdict on May 31, from which the LIRR appealed on 14 June. As soon as Palsgraf gets the jury's verdict, Gerhardts also sues the tracks, with Wood as their advisor.
William H. Manz, in his article on facts at Palsgraf, suggests that no one spends much time preparing for an experiment. Wood did not contact his fact-finding witness, Gerhardts, until just before the trial, and Palsgraf was examined by Dr. Hammond the day before the trial began. McNamara, one of the most junior members of the LIRR legal team, did not name the witnesses, and Manz advised all defense strategies to make the judge reject the case. In his later book Judge Richard Posner indicated that the much-challenged LIRR did not present a better case than the first plaintiff: "he puts in the defense of the basements."
Initial submission
The LIRR appeal brought the case to the Supreme Court Appeals Division of New York, for the Second Department, the state intermediate appeal court. In summary before the Appeals Division, the LIRR is of the opinion that the verdict has been contrary to law and evidence. It emphasizes that no one knows that the package is dangerous, and that there is no law that requires it to search the contents of passenger luggage. This brief explanation, there is no negligence in helping a man make a train, and even if there is, that omission is not the direct cause of Palsgraf's injuries. Wood, for Palsgraf, argues that the jury's verdict finds negligence supported by irrefutable facts, and should not be questioned by the appeals court. The plaintiff's brief also suggests that the failure of a train to summon witnesses of employees who have helped the person should decide the conclusion of his negligence. Wood considers the coaches guilty of "neglect of duty", a mistake that is the direct cause of Palsgraf's injuries.
The lawyers postulated the case before the Appeals Division in Brooklyn on October 21, 1927. On December 9, the Appeals Division affirmed the court's decision, 3-2. Albert H. F. Seeger wrote the opinion of the majority of the five Supreme Court Justices who listened to this case, and joined Judge William F. Hagarty and William B. Carswell. Seeger was born in Stuttgart and came to the United States as a child; he was elected to the Supreme Court in 1917 and appointed to the Appeals Division by Governor Al Smith in 1926. Aged 68 at Palsgraf , he could serve only two more years before his mandatory retirement. Justice Seeger ruled that the jury's finding of negligence was backed up by evidence, and speculated that the jury might have found that helping passengers on a moving train was a negligent act. He writes that while a collection of facts may be new, the case does not differ in principle from a well-known court ruling on causality, such as the Squib case, in which explosives are ignited and thrown, then thrown away repeatedly by people who do not want hurt to explode near the plaintiff, injuring himself; his jacket against the man who had arranged the squib movement was upheld. The majority also focus on the high level of caring duties that the LIRR owes to Palsgraf, one of its customers.
Chief Judge Edward Lazansky (joined Justice J. Addison Young) writes dissent. Lazansky, son of Czech immigrants, was elected Minister of State of New York as a Democrat in 1910. Elected to the Supreme Court in 1917, he was appointed Second Chief Justice of the Department by Governor Smith in 1927. Lazansky did not question the findings of the jury's negligence , but felt that employee behavior was not a direct cause of Palsgraf's injuries, since the man's behavior in carrying a packet that might explode into a crowded passenger station was an act independent of negligence, which ignored the train too far in the cause of accountability.
Maps Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
Court of Appeal
The LIRR is entitled by law to bring the case to the New York Appellate Court (the highest state court) because there is a disagreement in the Appeals Division, and it happens. The train argues again that Palsgraf has failed to establish that he has come to harm because of railroad negligence: that there is no negligence, and even if any, the omission does not harm Palsgraf, since such injuries are not "natural and possibly the consequences of helping a man boarded the train ". In short the allegation that the coaches can not stop him from rising, and once he throws himself into the train, has little choice but to help him, "faced with such an emergency they can not be prosecuted for negligence because they choose to help the man instead of "Wood, for his part, contends that omissions have been discovered by the jury, and by the majority and dissenting judges in the Appeals Division. He writes that there are many facts from which the jury could have found negligence, including the fact that the train did not close the door when departing (though whether this would allow people to be late in the plane or due to an uncertain summer day). This case was debated before the Court of Appeals in Albany on 24 February 1928.
Card Cardozo majority opinion
The Chief Judge of the Court of Appeal, Benjamin N. Cardozo, is a highly respected judge; he later became a judge in the US Supreme Court. Following a prominent legal career, Cardozo was elected to the Supreme Court of Justice in 1913, but was quickly appointed by the governor to service in the Court of Appeals. He in 1917 appointed the judge of the court, and in 1926 was elected chief judge by the electorate. At Palsgraf , Cardozo wrote for the 4-3 majority of the Court of Appeal, reversing the appeal and directing that case to the defendant, LIRR. Cardozo was joined by Judges Cuthbert W. Pound, Irving Lehman and Henry Kellogg.
Although it is the longest statement of the facts in any of the four appeals generated by this case, Cardozo is described by Posner as "elliptical and oblique". It is also considered "very abstract". According to Professor Walter O. Weyrauch in his 1978 journal article, "Cardozo's famous opinion reduces the complicated facts of the case to a minimum." Mrs. Palsgraf turns into a 'plaintiff' without age, family status or occupation. , the amount of damage he sought, and the size of the jury award. "For example, Cardozo described Palsgraf (which he did not name, or named his daughter) as standing on the LIRR platform, rather than waiting for the train, thus underestimating his status as a deserving customer high by train. Explosive packages are described as small, although witnesses describe them as large. The scales are described as "at the other end of the platform, many meters away" from the explosion, but the record does not support this statement. This characterization may be based on testimony by Lillian Palsgraf, who went to buy papers from a news kiosk "on the other end of the platform", but that was not yet close enough to see the pack fall. Cardozo's characterization of the distance will be challenged by the plaintiff in his movement for reargument, which will be rejected with the answer that no matter how close he is to the explosion, he is not so close to carrying him in a predictable risk zone.
After the pattern of facts, Cardozo began his discussion of the law with "the guardian behavior of the defendant, if it is wrong in relation to the packet holder, not wrong in relation to the plaintiff, standing far away Relative To him it is not a negligence at all." Cardozo quotes Pollock on Torts and cites some cases for the proposition that "evidence of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not be done." Only if there is an obligation to the injured plaintiff, the offense causing the injury, there may be liability. He defended his decision, "different conclusions will involve us, and quickly too, in the maze of contradictions." Cardozo raises a hypothetical situation: if a rail guard stumbles on a bundle of newspapers, and there are explosives in it, will there be liability for the injured passenger at the other end of the platform? Will the result be different if the object containing the explosive is a valve? If any of the negligence of the day, Cardozo argues, it is only the negligence that resulted in the collapse and destruction of the package, and no fault was made by train to Palsgraf for personal injury, "the diversity of incidents emphasized the futility of attempting to establish a plaintiff's right on the basis of an error others. "The chief judge instructed," Risk enough to be deemed to define a task to be obeyed ". Cardozo did not release the defendant who deliberately relinquished the destructive power, such as firing a weapon, just because the bullet took an unexpected path. This was not the case, Cardozo was arrested: even if the railway guard had thrown the package deliberately, without knowing its contents, he could not consciously harm Palsgraf, and would not be responsible. Failure can not impose obligations on which willful action will not.
Negligence, Cardozo stressed, comes from human relations, not in abstract. Negligence that does not harm anyone is not a mistake. Not enough, he found, to prove negligence by the defendant and the plaintiff's damage; there must be a breach of obligation to the plaintiff by the defendant. He traces the history of the law of negligence, an unknown concept in medieval times, and notes that it develops as a branch of the law of transgression, and one can not prosecute offenses to another. Had the railway track neglected to Palsgraf, it might have been responsible, but "the consequences to be followed must first be rooted in error", and there is no legal error by the train to Palsgraf. Thus, the lower court is incorrect, and must be canceled, and the case is closed, with Palsgraf bearing the cost of the lawsuit.
Dissent by Andrews
William S. Andrews of Syracuse is a 69-year-old judge, famous for his scholarship, who has been in the Court of Appeals since 1917. The son of Charles Andrews, a former Chief Justice Judge William Andrews is best remembered today because he wrote an opinion on Palsgraf . In disagreement, he joined Judge Frederick E. Crane and John F. O'Brien. Andrews began with a brief fact-reading: that a railway official had negligently removed the package, the contents unknown to the coach, and the subsequent explosion damaged the scale and injured the plaintiff, "a passenger who wanted to come." Andrews notes the fundamental difference between the judges about the law of negligence: whether there should be a duty to the plaintiff, the offense that hurt him, and whether, when there is an act that poses a threat to the safety of another, the offender must "be responsible for all the nearest consequences, when they cause injury to people who are generally considered to be outside the radius of danger ". Andrews believes that if any act of negligence, the direct cause of injury to the plaintiff, who must establish accountability.
Andrews thinks Cardozo's reasoning is too narrow, and feels that his focus should be on unwarranted action: driving to Broadway at high speed is the negligence of whether an accident occurred or not. Such acts are wrong for the public, not just for those who may be hurt. "Caution is a duty imposed upon each of us to protect the public from unnecessary harm, not to protect A, B or C... In an empty world, negligence will not exist, it does involve relationships between humans and human beings, but not just the relationship between humans and people that he might expect his actions would hurt.Instead, the relationship between him and the people he did actually hurt.If his actions have a tendency to hurt others, it harms him. miles away just as surely as the one at the scene. "
Andrews pointed out that the law allows plaintiffs to recover from defendants who have no obligation to them: orphans can recover for their carelessly slain parents; The bereaved person can recover from negligence in the death of a spouse. Insurance companies may demand subrogation and return the amount paid from the person starting the fire. "Behind the cloud of words is the fact that they hide, that the action, which is wrong against the insured, has also been detrimental to the company."
An event may have many causes, Andrews says, and only a few are considered proximate. The responsibility for negligence can only be found if the nearest cause exists, a term recognized by an improper judge. He suggested the river's analogy, made from water from various sources, and at that moment raced into the sea, completely mixed. But for the time being, after the water from the muddy swamp or clay bed, join its origins. Beyond a certain point, it can not be traced, and that is a direct cause, "because of comfort, public policy, rough sense of justice, arbitrary law refuses to track a series of events beyond a certain point.This is not logic.. "
The point, beyond which there is no direct cause, is drawn differently by different judges, and by different courts, Andrews explains. He listed factors that the court might consider, such as the remoteness of time and space, and discussed several hypotheses, such as the driver who caused the accident, the voice that surprised the nanny to drop a child, then returned to the case that was decided,
Mrs. Palsgraf stood a bit further. How far can not be told from the record - apparently twenty-five or thirty feet. Maybe less. Except for the explosion, he will not get hurt. We were told by the applicant in his brief statement "it is undeniable that the explosion was the direct cause of the plaintiff's injury." So that is a substantial factor in producing results - here there is a natural and continuous relationship - a direct relationship. The only reason that intervened was that instead of slamming it to the ground, the concussion destroyed the weighing machine which then hit him. No remoteness of time, little space. And of course, with such an explosion here, there is no need for a major forecast to predict that its natural outcome is to harm a person on a stage no farther from the scene than the plaintiff. Just how no one can predict. Either by flying fragments, broken glass, by machine debris or structure no one can say. But injuries in some form are the most likely to happen.
Therefore, Andrews concluded, the verdict of the jury must be upheld. "Under these circumstances I can not say as a legal matter that the plaintiff's wounds are not a direct result of the negligence, that's all we have in front of us."
Next event
Wood, Palsgraf's lawyer, moved the Court of Appeals to allow the case to be reviewed, alleging that Cardozo had confused Palsgraf's position with his daughter Lillian (at a newsstand), and complained about the use of chief judges from terms such as "distant" and "distant". Wood warned that the decision could have a detrimental effect on innocent passengers. The court dismissed the motion with a one-sentence statement possibly written by Cardozo, "If we assume that the plaintiff is closer to the blast site than the prevailing opinion, then he is not too close to the injury due to falling packets, unknown to contain explosives, will be in the range reasonable prevention. "The $ 559.60 fee was caused from Palsgraf to the railway line under Cardozo's order. Posner doubted that number had ever been collected, noting that the Palsgraf family had spoken with lawyers and periodicals about the case in later years, and never mentioned attempts to collect what should be about a year's salary for a former flawed janitor.
Helen Palsgraf remained saddened by the loss of her case. She became mute, and suffered another health problem before her death on October 27, 1945, at the age of 61 years. At the time of his death, Palsgraf lived in Richmond Hill, Queens with his daughter, Elizabeth. His former lawyer, Wood, retained the law office at the Woolworth Building until his death in 1972 at the age of 96. His opposing trial adviser, McNamara, remained with the LIRR's legal department until retiring in 1959, while the superior McNamara and notes adviser, Keany, railway general counsel until he died in 1935. Justice Humphrey retired in 1936, a year after he gained renown for leading the marriage of heir Doris Duke; he died in 1940. Andrews retired at the end of 1928, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 years; he died in 1936. Cardozo was appointed to the US Supreme Court in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover and served there until his death in 1938.
After the case of Palsgraf became famous among lawyers, who have been taught to many of them in law school, family members sometimes experience a shocked reaction when lawyers know their last names. Frank Palsgraf, Helen's grandson, said in 1978 about being "treated like a celebrity" by a prosecutor when called to jury duty, and caused the judge to recall a difficult night studying a case at law school. Nevertheless, the prosecutors beat him from the jury. According to Posner, future family coverage "makes it clear that, with the exception of Mrs. Palsgraf, the Palsgraf family is pleased with its relationship to the famous case, despite the outcome". In 1991, the relationship became closer, like Lisa Newell, the first cousin to be removed from Judge Cardozo, married to Palsgraf's grandson J. Scott Garvey.
Prominence
Palsgraf came to the attention of the legal world quickly. Dean William L. Prosser of the University of California Law School wrote that the decision of the Appeals Division fell into the hands of Professor Francis H. Bohlen of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Bohlen at the time The reporter composed the first Statement of Rebellion for the American Institute of Law (ALI), and Cardozo informally one of the advisors. In that task, Bohlen had difficulty dealing with the concept of duty of care in negligence, especially involving unpredictable plaintiffs, and Prosser attributed that Cardozo was treated to discussions learned by other counselors of cases that might come before his court and, reassured by arguments, using them to decide Palsgraf . Kaufman doubted this story, told Prosser by Dean Young B. Smith of Columbia, noting that the only advisory meeting between two appeals at Palsgraf occurred in New York on December 12 - 13, 1927, started just three days after the Appeals Division came to power, and the record revealed that Cardozo was not there; the chief judge heard arguments throughout the week in Albany. However, discussions and materials from the Compilation Re-Statement may affect Cardozo in its decision.
Bohlen relied heavily on Cardozo's opinion on Palsgraf in presenting the Tentative Plan of Re-Statement to the annual ALI meeting, which approved the passage quoting Palsgraf . Palsgraf quickly became famous in the legal community, and cited in many cases, some dubious relevance. According to Kaufman, "odd facts, Cardozo's spat on legal matters, case time in relation to Restatement projects, adaptability to law school teaching, policy-oriented differences by Andrews, Cardozo rhetoric, and Cardozo names - all these factors combined to make the Palsgraf lawsuit. "According to Prosser, writing in his horn book for law students," what the Palsgraf case actually does is subject to the best state court, a law professor for examination questions ". But Professor (then Judge) John T. Noonan saw more than this, noting that Cardozo was the most prominent court-judge judge: "The joy of Palsgraf is not just that it is a brilliant test of questions; The examination was answered by Cardozo. "
The first mention of Palsgraf in legal review is a case record written by law students, appearing throughout the year after the Court of Appeal's decision. Professor Robert L. Goodhart, in the Yale Law Journal in 1930, was in front of an avalanche of comments in such a way that in 1938, Louisiana State University professor Thomas A. Cowan regarded Palsgraf "legal institutions". The case is incorporated into legal standard books, from which law students study, in the early 1930s, usually to describe the necessary relationship between the defendant's faults and the plaintiff's injury in cases of negligence. According to Posner, writing in 1990, "Palsgraf is now the subject of great scientific literature, and I am sure, the only case reprinted in all American cash books about lawsuit. " Manz writes, "everyone who has been sitting in American law school class, can recall basic facts - crowded train platforms, running people, falling packages, explosions, and falling scales. has become a kind of 'legal urban legend' - a story allegedly true, but impossible, told and retold to each new class of law students. "Professor W. Jonathan Cardi noted," in the law school classroom, 'Palsgraf Day' often celebrated with food and drink, dramatic reenactment, interpretative poetry, and even mocking duels between Judges Cardozo and Andrews. "
Palsgraf is immediately adopted by some state courts, sometimes in different contexts: Although some state courts outside New York agree, others do not, sometimes feel that forecasting is a matter that the jury should consider. According to Posner, writing in 1990, Cardozo argued that there was no accountability for unforeseen plaintiffs "has been followed by a number of countries other than New York but remains a minority rule.Most states continue to dwell together with the 'nearest cause' dimly, emphasizing the closeness in the time and space of the defendant's careless acts against the plaintiff's injury, that is the approach taken by Judge Andrews's dissent at Palsgraf. "
The majority of state courts accept that there must be an obligation to take care there for accountability: Wisconsin courts, though, have declared that they have adopted the Andrews approach, and impose liability when there is an obligation to everyone, whether the person is a plaintiff or not. The Reissue (Second) of Torts (1965) changed the previous formulation only slightly, but the third Re-Statement (2009), took a closer approach with Andrews in focus on whether the defendant is engaged in an activity that carries the risk of harm to another person (not necessarily the plaintiff), and whether the defendant takes reasonable action. The new formulation creates a future, or scope of risk, not an obstacle to overcome, as in Palsgraf , but factors that must be weighed against others when determining whether there is negligence. So, according to law professor David Owen in his 2009 article, "The Re-Statement (Third) discarded Judge Cardozo's elementary work at Palsgraf some time ago. also denied According to Judge Andrew [s] a valuable insight that the jury should offer a variety of factors of justice, beginning with the previous forecast, in estimating how far the responsibility should be expanded â €.
Discussion
According to Posner, Cardio's "point" is that there is no obligation to the unpredictable plaintiff. "Don Herzog, in his book of 2017, considers the principle of Palsgraf means that" if anyone is harmed here, who carried the parcel. The guard who persecuted herself was harming Mrs. Palsgraf. But that does not mean they are guilty of Mrs. Palsgraf. And if they are not wrong, he can not imagine winning in tort action. Cardozo does not think that if he's on the jury, he will not find a train. "He's in charge." He said it was a legal mistake to let the jury find standing. " This is because "the important fact for Cardozo is that the package of explosives is not marked, so the careful conductors worry only if they make it fall, it will break... They have no reason to worry about Mrs Palsgraf's welfare."
Cardozo has been praised for his writing style at Palsgraf . Posner notes that in the facts the case of Cardozo "saw instantiated the basic principles of legal omission and was able to articulate them in the prose of striking freshness, clarity, and clarity", in most opinions written in short sentences and less footnotes or quotation marks. The University of Pennsylvania Law Faculty, Professor Kim Lane Scheppele noted that the opinion was "written by Judge Benjamin Cardozo at the height of his remarkable power". Richard Polenberg, in his study of the jurist, stated, "Cardozo has the genius to make it appear that the results he achieved are logical, inevitable, and legally irrefutable". Prosser states, "in honor of the superlative style in which both [Cardozo and Andrews's comments] are written, none of them wear well to old acquaintances, both of which ask unabashed questions, proclaiming dogmatic propositions for no reason or explanation." Herzog was also less enthusiastic, noting that "the majority opinion is unfortunately written in strange curiosity that I sometimes call Cardozo-speak."
From the early days, there has been criticism from Palsgraf , and more recently, from Cardozo to make it. Cowan, writing in 1938, explains that his ownership is limited to the facts, which in view of the same circumstances over and over, the train will not violate the obligations of the new plaintiff by assisting a man with such a package in boarding the plane. Prosser in his 1953 article wonders, "how does any rule concerning 'scope of risk' evolve from two guards, firework packets, and small-scale help in the solution to this question? Is it true, in Palsgraf? > itself, so completely ignores the fact that the plaintiff is a passenger [...] until the question is resolved, is Palsgraf really a definite authority even for Palsgraf? "
Noonan's 1976 book notes the reluctance of jurists to exploit "many legal facts not mentioned by Cardozo and Andrews", although the lower-court records in Palsgraf were reproduced in civil procedure records in the 1950s. Noonan criticized Cardozo for not considering the state of Palsgraf when making his decision, and included factors that might have affected Cardozo against the plaintiff, including that he is a lifelong bachelor who has no Palsgraf experience in caring for children, and he may have frowned. over Wood's representatives from Palsgraf (possibly a contingent cost, something he did not like at the time). Posner, writing in 1990, disagreed with Noonan and with the feminist critics following him, noted that the judge took an oath to do justice to the rich and poor, "so the fact that Mrs. Palsgraf is a poor man will not be a land that principled for bowing rules that benefit him ". Noonan has considered unfairly awarded court fees against Palsgraf, and in his 2016 book, law professor Cathleen Kaveny agrees, "the punishment imposed on Palsgraf for seeking justice through the courts is to remove it, a single mother, from the ability to support his children. All judges, however, can develop empathy, and in telling the story of Helen Palsgraf, Judge Noonan makes a good case of why they should do it. "
In 2011, Cardi analyzed the contemporary influences that Palsgraf had in state courts. He found that both Cardozo and Andrews had won on the question of how maintenance tasks were formulated, with the courts applying policy analysis. "Regarding the right doctrinal home for plaintiffs-foretold, Cardozo no doubt prevails.Although the vast majority of jurisdictions clearly state that the task is the right home for the plaintiff-forward, Cardozo's vision of forecasting as a categorical determination has not been widely adopted." But he noted, "Andrews may have found a back door to victory, arguably the most important consequence of the Palsgraf decree, the judge's resolution/jury question, seems to be leaning towards Andrews.The majority of courts prefer to leave maturity - even as part of the task - for the jury. "
Scheppele placed Palsgraf in a social context, noting that 108 passengers were killed in a train operation at LIRR in 1924, a character that was typical for that in the 1920s.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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