Derdiarian v. Felix Contracting Corp.
51 N.Y.2d 308 (1980)
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Rule of Law:
An intervening act by a third party will not sever the causal connection to an injury and absolve a negligent defendant of liability if the intervening act was a normal and foreseeable consequence of the circumstances created by the defendant's negligence.
Facts:
- Felix Contracting Corporation (Felix) was installing an underground gas main in a city street, creating an excavation site in an active traffic lane.
- Felix placed a single, wooden horse-type barricade to secure the worksite.
- Harold Derdiarian, an employee of a subcontractor, was working at the site near a kettle of 400-degree boiling liquid enamel.
- A Felix foreman instructed Derdiarian where to park his truck and set up the kettle.
- James Dickens, a driver who was under medical treatment for epilepsy, failed to take his prescribed medication.
- While driving eastbound on the street, Dickens suffered a seizure, lost consciousness, and his vehicle careened into the work site.
- Dickens' car crashed through the single barricade, struck Derdiarian, and hit the kettle of boiling enamel.
- Derdiarian was thrown into the air and then splattered with the boiling liquid.
Procedural Posture:
- Harold Derdiarian and his wife sued Felix Contracting Corporation, Con Edison, and James Dickens in the Supreme Court, Queens County (the trial court of first instance).
- Upon a jury verdict, the trial court rendered an order in favor of the plaintiffs on the issue of liability, apportioning fault among the defendants.
- Felix Contracting Corporation appealed the trial court's order to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (an intermediate appellate court).
- The Appellate Division affirmed the trial court's order, with one justice dissenting.
- The Appellate Division granted Felix Contracting Corporation, as appellant, leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals (the state's highest court).
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Issue:
Does the intervening negligent act of a driver who, due to a seizure, loses control of his vehicle and enters an inadequately protected construction site, constitute a superseding cause that, as a matter of law, breaks the causal chain between the contractor's negligence and an injury to a worker?
Opinions:
Majority - Cooke, C.J.
No. The driver's intervening act was not a superseding cause that breaks the causal nexus as a matter of law, because the risk of a car negligently entering an improperly protected work area is the very foreseeable hazard that renders the contractor's conduct negligent. Liability turns upon whether the intervening act is a normal or foreseeable consequence of the situation created by the defendant’s negligence. A prime hazard associated with failing to safeguard a construction site is the possibility that a driver will negligently enter it and injure a worker. That the driver's negligence stemmed from a failure to take medication rather than a simple driving error is irrelevant, as the precise manner of the event need not be anticipated. Because the risk of the intervening act is the very same risk that rendered Felix's conduct negligent, the causal connection is not severed.
Analysis:
This decision solidifies the principle that foreseeability is the touchstone for determining whether an intervening act qualifies as a superseding cause that breaks the chain of causation. The court established that a defendant whose negligence creates a specific type of risk cannot escape liability when that very risk materializes, even if it is triggered by the negligence of a third party. This ruling makes it more difficult for defendants to shift blame in cases where their own failure to take precautions creates the conditions for an accident, reinforcing the duty to protect against foreseeable dangers from third parties.
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