Intervening Negligence Breaks Causal Chain
BLOOD v. VH-1 MUSIC FIRST (February 9, 2012)
.jpg)
Dennis Hernandez caused a serious traffic accident late one September afternoon when he crossed the I-57 median in southern Illinois. The local fire department closed the northbound lanes. Four hours later, David and Paul Blood approached the still-stalled traffic and safely stopped. Shortly thereafter, however, a T.E.A.M. Logistics truck driven by Milinko Cukovic collided with the Bloods’ vehicle, seriously injuring David. Blood brought suit against Logistics and Cukovic. Logistics and Cukovic brought a third-party complaint against Hernandez and his employer, alleging that Hernandez' earlier negligence was the proximate cause of the later accident. Blood settled with Logistics and Cukovic and amended his complaint to name Hernandez. Judge Murphy (S.D. Ill.) granted summary judgment in Hernandez' favor on the ground that Blood could not prove proximate cause. Blood appeals.
In their opinion, Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Easterbrook and Judges Ripple and Kanne affirmed. Applying Illinois law, the Court stated that proximate cause, although normally a jury question, can be resolved as a matter of law by considering the passage of time, whether the original wrongdoer's force continued until the later event, whether the intervenor’s act was extraordinary, and whether the intervenor’s action was a normal response to the situation. Applying those factors to the facts, the Court noted that the four hour window between the original accident and the later accident was much longer than in other Illinois appellate cases finding a break in the causal chain. More importantly, however, the Court concluded that no reasonable juror could find proximate cause given the extraordinary nature of Cukovic's acts. In clear weather, on a flat road, when all the vehicles that preceded him were able to stop, Cukovic hit the Blood's at almost 55 miles per hour. His negligence broke the causal link.
Michael Rigney practices in the law offices of GVC Ltd. in Chicago. In this blog, he reports on select