NEGLIGENCE-PROXIMATE CAUSE-INTERVENING ACT OF CHILD

Authors

John J. Gaskell, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

In the race track arena of defendant's fairground there were nightly fireworks displays. Three bombs, similar in appearance to ordinary firecrackers, but containing explosives more powerful than gunpowder, had failed to explode on the previous night. They had been wrapped in paper, placed in open wooden crates alongside three exposed bombs, and left unguarded in the arena firing area which was accessible to and traversed by the general public. The plaintiff's older brother, aged thirteen, together with other children between twelve and fifteen years old, had climbed over a fence into the fairgrounds. In compassing the fairgrounds he discovered the bombs, took the defective ones, gave two to his friends and carried one to his home two miles away. The next morning while being handled by the infant plaintiff, who was seven years of age, the bomb exploded injuring him seriously. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and judgment was entered thereon. On appeal, held, affirmed. The intervening acts of the plaintiff's brother did not as a matter of law break the causal chain. Two judges dissented. Kingsland v. Erie County Agr. Soc., 298 N.Y. 409, 84 N.E. (2d) 38 (1949).

Recommended Citation

John J. Gaskell, NEGLIGENCE-PROXIMATE CAUSE-INTERVENING ACT OF CHILD, 48 Mich. L. Rev. 374 (1950).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol48/iss3/17