Yun
v. Ford Motor Co.
Superior
Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, 1994.
276
N.J. Super. 142, 647 A.2d 841.
Prosser,
pp. 314-319
Facts: The spare tire fell off of
Yun’s van and rolled to the left side of the highway. Chang got out of Yun’s car and ran across the
highway to get the spare tire. While
running back, he got hit by a car and died.
Yun sued a whole bunch of people.
All of them got summary judgment except for the driver and owner of the
car that hit Chang. Yun appealed the
judgment.
Issue: Did the defendants’ negligence
constitute the proximate cause of the harm to Chang?
Rule: The defendant shall not be
found liable when a superseding cause other than the defendant’s negligence is responsible
for the harm.
Analysis: The court basically says
that Chang was really stupid and shouldn’t have gone running across the
street. The court says that this unforeseeable
conduct basically breaks the chain of proximate causation that might otherwise
hold at least some of the defendants liable.
The
dissent says that the case is not such a slam dunk that it should be taken away
from a jury. The minority says it is
debatable whether the defective spare tire assembly caused the plaintiff’s
death. The judge makes the point that judges
in general are more conservative than the public at large, and what seems
unreasonable and imprudent to a judge might seem like reasonable behavior to
the average person.
Conclusion: The dismissal of the suit
was upheld, but the New Jersey Supreme Court later overturned the ruling of
this court and reinstated the suit.