Hebert v. Enos

Massachusetts Appeals Court · Torts

TortsNegligenceForeseeabilityProximate Causenegligenceproximate causeforeseeabilitylegal cause

Facts

Before leaving on vacation, the defendant asked his neighbor, Hebert, to water his flowers, and Hebert did so without incident for several days. On July 4, while holding the garden hose and reaching for the outside faucet, Hebert received a severe electric shock and suffered serious injuries. Water was found in the defendant's basement, and the source was traced to an overflowing second-floor toilet. Viewing the evidence favorably to the plaintiffs, the court assumed that faulty repairs by the defendant caused the toilet to flood and that the flooding interacted with the electrical system so that current traveled through the water piping system to the outside faucet.

Issue

Whether, assuming the defendant negligently repaired the second-floor toilet and that the flooding caused the electrical current that injured Hebert, the severe electric shock to Hebert at the outside faucet was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of that negligence. Put differently, was the harm sufficiently foreseeable to permit liability, or so highly extraordinary that summary judgment was proper as a matter of law?

Rule

Even where there is evidence of negligence and but-for causation, a plaintiff must show that the injury was a reasonably foreseeable result of the defendant's conduct. A defendant must guard against what usually happens and what is likely to happen, but not against harms that are only remotely and slightly probable; when the resulting harm is highly extraordinary and outside the range of reasonable apprehension, a court may rule as a matter of law that there is no legal causation.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Providence, Nolan Pierce hastily repairs a second-floor washing machine drain in his townhouse before leaving for a weekend trip. The repair fails, water seeps through the house, and his houseguest, Tessa Lin, later slips on a puddle in the kitchen and fractures her wrist.

If Tessa sues Nolan for negligence, which is the strongest argument against summary judgment for Nolan on foreseeability grounds?

Explanation. The majority opinion distinguishes ordinary flooding-related harms from highly extraordinary ones. The proper inquiry is whether the general character and probability of the injury were foreseeable and whether it is the same general sort of harm risked by the negligent conduct. A slip-and-fall from water leakage is an ordinary, likely consequence of a faulty water repair, unlike a bizarre electrical injury far removed from the risk created. The other choices incorrectly equate direct causation with proximate cause or deny the court's ability to decide foreseeability as a matter of law. (Derived from Hebert v. Enos (n.d.).)