Case Brief of Palsgraf

Introduction

        Analysis of case Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad in the court of New Jersey in 1990. This case falls under tort law because they was injury to one party from another. More specifically, the case is being analyzed under negligence. The tort of negligence involves the accidental injury of someone due to another’s failure to live up to a required duty of care. The individual’s action must create a risk that is foreseeable, meaning that a reasonable person who is in the same situation would be able to anticipate the risk and guard against it (Lousiana, 2016). However, to prove the defendant was negligent, the plaintiff must be able to prove that the following 5 elements are true:

1. Duty: the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff.
2. Breach: the defendant breached said duty.
3. Causation: the defendant’s breach caused the plaintiff’s injury.
4. Foreseeability: the defendant’s breach was of foreseeable risk to a reasonable person.
5. Damages: the plaintiff suffered an injury as recognized by law.

Statement of facts

        Ms. Palsgraf suffered injuries while being a patron at the defendant’s train station. The facts of the Palsgraf case are as follows:

• A guard employed with the LIRR helped a passenger onto a departing train by pushing him forward where another guard who was on the train helped the passenger up by the hand.
• As the passenger was pushed onto the departing train, a package he has carrying became dislodged and fell to the ground.
• The package, unbeknownst to anyone else at the train station, contained fireworks, which then exploded upon falling.
• The explosion caused such movement on the train station, that at another end of the station, scales fell and landed on the plaintiff, Ms. Palsgraf.
• Ms. Palsgraf suffered injuries and sued the LIRR for her injuries.
• The jury found the case in Ms. Palsgraf’s favor, therefore the LIRR appealed the decision.

Position Argument

The position held is that in favor of Justice Cardozo’s opinion and ruling of the case. After reading this case it is easy to see why the jury was so split. The case can be argued both ways, I side and agree with Judge Cardozo’s analysis of the case. The legal duty of an individual must be correlated to the risk that can be reasonably foreseen and only owed to those in a foreseeable zone of danger, as stated by Cardozo’s Zone of Danger rule. There are several elements in this rule one must consider in order to understand why the railroad’s guard:

1) acted in accordance to the immediate risk he saw for the passenger about to fall as he boarded the train; and

2) his duty of care was not owed to Palsgraf, as she was standing far away.

By the accounts of the case, Palsgraf was far enough away to be considered out of the zone of danger (Palsgraf v. LIRR). The railroad guard could not have reasonably foreseen that any harm would come to Palsgraf. Furthermore, neither the guard nor anyone else was aware of the contents of the man’s package and again he could not have reasonably foreseen that such a package would cause harm to someone who was clearly out of the zone of danger. Can someone be considered negligent when they are unable to foresee the chain of events that may occur as a result of their actions? They can be, but in this case the rule of proximate causation does not justify making the railroad or the guard responsible.  The guard had a legal duty to the man who was boarding the train and nearly fell. No one could have known the contents of the package posed a threat, and no one could have known that the package would cause damage to the station and those around it.