vening acts or forces whatever, then the defendant's act is the direct and exclusive cause of the harm and the result is proximate. If it be a result which is not an extraordinary departure from the ordinary, it cannot be denied that there is nowhere any doubt of his liability."

29

Unless one admits the possibility of miracles happening, it is difficult to say that nature has ever operated in an unnatural way. However, the operation of certain elemental forces cannot be predicted with accuracy. When these supervene in an unexpected way, we can say this is unnatural or abnormal. Such, for example, would be sudden storms and unusual cold or floods. This is really all that should be considered as a not-natural act of nature, but some courts seem to think that odd and unusual accidents are somehow not natural, as though nature were temporarily off duty.

Thus, in Wood v. Pennsylvania R. R. Co., it appeared that the defendant's locomotive, negligently running sixty miles an hour as it neared a station, struck a woman who was crossing the track. The impact threw her body through the air a considerable distance. In falling, the body struck the plaintiff and injured him. The court somewhat confused the question of plaintiff's absence of contributory negligence with the question of proximate cause, and said that the accident was so unusual as not to be foreseeable,

29 It will be observed that the same result is reached by the application of the probable consequence rule. See $5.

30 177 Pa. 306, 35 Atl. 699. And compare an unsound result on a similar ground in Hoag & Alger v. Lake Shore & M. S. R. R. Co., 85 Pa. St. 293. Kuhn v. Jewett, 32 N. J. Eq. 647, on exactly the same facts as the Hoag case, is contrary to it.

and that the defendant was not liable. If the railroad owed the plaintiff any duty of care, it would seem impossible to say that this result was anything else than direct and therefore proximate. Nature of course here operated in the only way that it could act. The result was not a miracle. There was no intervening circumstance between the impact and the injury. The court seems to have laid stress on the peculiarity of the accident. On the other hand, it is often said that the fact that a result is peculiar is no ground for excusing a defendant.31 This latter view seems preferable in the case of all harms directly produced.

15. Intervening causes-Consequential results.— When the defendant's act does not immediately produce the harmful result, but when there are other factors coöperating with it, the question whether or not the defendant's act was the proximate cause is answered largely by examining the nature and character of these coöperating factors and seeing whether in any just sense they intervened between the defendant's act and the result. If they did, they, rather than the defendant's act, caused the result. If they did not, then the defendant's act is in law at least equally the cause, and he cannot escape liability.32 Those factors which are most frequently set up as intervening causes may be roughly classified in groups.

31 Doyle v. C. St. P. & K. C. Ry., 77 Iowa 607, 42 N. W. 555, is a case in point. This was a damage suit where plaintiff was struck on the head by a flying coupling pin.

32 Many of these cases could have been decided the same way under the probable consequence rule. When they could not, we must remember the explanation given in §§ 11 and 12.

33

16. Intervening acts of nature. It is uniformly held that causal connection is not broken by the intervention of the ordinary forces of nature unless they were so unusual as to be unnatural (in the sense used in § 14). Thus, in Romney Marsh v. Trinity House, the defendants negligently ran their vessel ashore about a mile out from the plaintiff's sea-wall. It was then blowing hard and there was a flood tide. The vessel was washed in and it damaged the wall. The wind and the tide were held not to be an intervening cause and the defendants were held liable for the harm to the wall.

34

So, in Kuhn v. Jewett, a train of oil cars collided with a locomotive and was derailed. Some of the cars burst and the oil ran out upon the surface of a small stream, where it was ignited by coals from the engine. The burning oil was carried down the stream some distance, and there ignited the plaintiff's building. Though scarcely foreseeable, the result was held proximate, as there was no intervening

cause.

35

17. Same subject-Carrier cases.-Ordinarily, however, the intervention of nature in an unexpected way is deemed an intervening cause and relieves the defendant from liability. In Morrison v. Davis," the defendant was transporting merchandise by canal boat, but had a lame horse. Owing to this fact, the boat was overtaken by an unusual flood and the goods were destroyed. Had the defendant taken due care, the goods would have been out of the way of danger.

33 L. R., 5 Exchequer 204 (Eng.).

34 32 N. J. Eq. 647.

35 20 Pa. St. 171.

37

In McClary v. Railroad,36 a train that was negligently behind time was caught by a windstorm, and the plaintiff was injured. Had it been on time, or still more behind time, it would not have been struck. In Denny v. New York Central R. R. Co., owing to negligent delay, goods were overtaken in transit by an unprecedented flood. It was held in all these cases that the forces of nature, being unexpected, amounted to an intervening cause, and the defendants were held not liable. The defendants' negligence was thus rather a condition than a cause.

There are a number of cases, however,38 like the foregoing, wherein, the defendant being a common carrier of goods, the court has held it liable, notwithstanding the unprecedented character of the natural force, on the ground that the defendant by its delay consciously exposed the goods to a continued peril. This may involve for its proper explanation some rules peculiar to the law of carriers.39

18. Intervening acts of animals. Likewise, causal connection is not broken by the intervening acts of animals when the animal acts in the way that such animals ordinarily act. In West v. Ward,1o the defendant left down the bars to plaintiff's field. A mare escaped and ran into a barbed wire fence. In McDonald v. Snelling," the defendant's horse

36 3 Nebr. 44.

37 13 Gray 481 (Mass.), LEADING ILLUSTRATIVE CASES; accord, Rodgers v. Mo. Pac. Ry., 75 Kas. 222. (Same flood as in Iowa case.)

38 Green-Wheeler Shoe Co. v. C. R. I. & P. Ry., 130 Iowa 123, 106 N. W. 498. Michaels v. N. Y. Cent. R. R. Co., 30 N. Y. 564. (Same flood as in Denny case.)

39 See subject, CARRIERS.

40 77 Iowa 323, 42 N. W. 309.

41 14 Allen 290 (Mass.).

through negligence ran away. It ran into Baker's sled and frightened Baker's horse, which ran away and struck the plaintiff's sleigh. In both cases the defendant was held liable for the consequential injuries. In Gilman v. Noyes,42 the act of the bears in eating the sheep would not be an intervening cause unless the jury believed that there was no reason to apprehend the presence of bears in the vicinity.

43

19. Intervening instinctive acts.-When the plaintiff has been put in a position of peril by the defendant's misconduct, and instinctively does an act to protect himself from injury, but which unfortunately results in harm to himself, this act is not deemed an intervening cause. Thus, in Woolley v. Scovell, the defendant threw a bag of wool out of the upper windows of his warehouse, at the same time calling out a warning. The plaintiff started to run, but ran in the direction of the falling bag and was struck. The court told the jury that if the plaintiff had lost his presence of mind by the act of the defendant and in the confusion produced by the situation had run into the danger, the plaintiff could recover. The jury found for the plaintiff.

Nor is the instinctive act of a third person an intervening cause. If one should throw a firecracker at another and he to save himself should convulsively and instinctively catch it and hurl it away from himself, he would be no more liable for the harm done to the person whom it struck in exploding than if it merely bounced off from him. The one who threw

42 § 3.

43 3 M. & R. 105 (Eng.).