For Your Data Delaney V. Reynolds Representative Brief
December 02, 2020
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Delaney v. Reynolds (2005)
three Mass. App. Ct. 239
Procedural History
• Plaintiff lady friend appealed the judgment of the Worcester Superior Court Department (Massachusetts), which granted summary judgment inwards favor of accused boyfriend. The lady friend had brought a negligence activity alleging that the swain knew that she had serious emotional in addition to mental problems, including thoughts of suicide, only nonetheless negligently kept his loaded gun inwards a house readily accessible to her.
Facts
• The swain was a police clit officer. It was his exercise to shop his handgun, loaded in addition to unlocked, inwards his sleeping accommodation inwards a duffle handbag or inwards a bureau drawer. On a nighttime when the lady friend had been drinking in addition to taking drugs, the parties fought, in addition to the swain told her to pack her belongings. While packing, she noticed the duffle bag, removed the handgun, aimed it at a window, in addition to pulled the trigger twice. The gun did non fire. The swain jumped from a sofa in addition to ran later the lady friend who so went into the master copy bedroom, pose the gun beneath her chin, in addition to pulled the trigger. The gun fired in addition to a bullet entered her mentum in addition to existed her correct check. The trial courtroom granted summary judgment inwards favor of the swain upon the dry ground that the girlfriend’s intervening human activity of shooting herself was a superseding crusade of her injuries.
Rule
• Suicide or an intentionally self-inflicted injury does non flora an intervening in addition to superseding cause.
• HOWEVER, in that place are around jurisdictions where this wouldn’t fifty-fifty brand it to the jury, thence Suicide or an intentionally self-inflicted injury does flora an intervening in addition to superseding cause.
Application
• Negligent bear is the proximate crusade of an injury if the injury to the plaintiff was a foreseeable result of the defendant’s negligent conduct. H5N1 result is foreseeable if it was non highly extraordinary. That formulation is non altered when the original negligent human activity is followed past times an independent human activity or lawsuit that actively operates inwards bringing virtually a plaintiff’s injury, that is, a so-called intervening cause. Where the intervening occurrence was foreseeable past times a defendant, the causal chain of events remains intact in addition to the original negligence remains a proximate crusade of a plaintiff’s injury. Where, however, the intervening lawsuit was of a type so extraordinary that it could non reasonably pick out been foreseen, that novel lawsuit is deemed to move the proximate crusade of the injury in addition to relieves a accused of liability
• A purposeful human activity of suicide, rather than whatsoever antecedent negligence, volition move deemed the legal crusade of a decedent’s injury unless the defendant’s negligence rendered the decedent unable to appreciate the self-destructive nature of the suicidal human activity or, fifty-fifty if able to appreciate the nature of the act, unable to resist the suicidal impulse.
Holding
• The courtroom reversed the judgment.
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three Mass. App. Ct. 239
Procedural History
• Plaintiff lady friend appealed the judgment of the Worcester Superior Court Department (Massachusetts), which granted summary judgment inwards favor of accused boyfriend. The lady friend had brought a negligence activity alleging that the swain knew that she had serious emotional in addition to mental problems, including thoughts of suicide, only nonetheless negligently kept his loaded gun inwards a house readily accessible to her.
Facts
• The swain was a police clit officer. It was his exercise to shop his handgun, loaded in addition to unlocked, inwards his sleeping accommodation inwards a duffle handbag or inwards a bureau drawer. On a nighttime when the lady friend had been drinking in addition to taking drugs, the parties fought, in addition to the swain told her to pack her belongings. While packing, she noticed the duffle bag, removed the handgun, aimed it at a window, in addition to pulled the trigger twice. The gun did non fire. The swain jumped from a sofa in addition to ran later the lady friend who so went into the master copy bedroom, pose the gun beneath her chin, in addition to pulled the trigger. The gun fired in addition to a bullet entered her mentum in addition to existed her correct check. The trial courtroom granted summary judgment inwards favor of the swain upon the dry ground that the girlfriend’s intervening human activity of shooting herself was a superseding crusade of her injuries.
Rule
• Suicide or an intentionally self-inflicted injury does non flora an intervening in addition to superseding cause.
• HOWEVER, in that place are around jurisdictions where this wouldn’t fifty-fifty brand it to the jury, thence Suicide or an intentionally self-inflicted injury does flora an intervening in addition to superseding cause.
Application
• Negligent bear is the proximate crusade of an injury if the injury to the plaintiff was a foreseeable result of the defendant’s negligent conduct. H5N1 result is foreseeable if it was non highly extraordinary. That formulation is non altered when the original negligent human activity is followed past times an independent human activity or lawsuit that actively operates inwards bringing virtually a plaintiff’s injury, that is, a so-called intervening cause. Where the intervening occurrence was foreseeable past times a defendant, the causal chain of events remains intact in addition to the original negligence remains a proximate crusade of a plaintiff’s injury. Where, however, the intervening lawsuit was of a type so extraordinary that it could non reasonably pick out been foreseen, that novel lawsuit is deemed to move the proximate crusade of the injury in addition to relieves a accused of liability
• A purposeful human activity of suicide, rather than whatsoever antecedent negligence, volition move deemed the legal crusade of a decedent’s injury unless the defendant’s negligence rendered the decedent unable to appreciate the self-destructive nature of the suicidal human activity or, fifty-fifty if able to appreciate the nature of the act, unable to resist the suicidal impulse.
Holding
• The courtroom reversed the judgment.
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Interested inwards learning how to become the elevation grades inwards your law schoolhouse classes? Want to larn how to written report smarter than your competition? Interested inwards transferring to a high ranked school?