what i did: an outline snippet

This is a follow-up from my last 'what I did' entry. I have pasted a fragment from my Torts outline along with italicized notes about what each part meant and how it fit together. All the normal caveats apply, plus one extra for this entry: I sure hope my legal summary is right here. Don't tell me if it's not, though. Proximate cause is now a fading memory.

I chose Torts because Torts is a common first year class. Also, Torts is often less theoretical than Crim, Property, or Contracts which makes it a good example. Some of my professors were policy wonks and so my outline was geared more towards legal theory, but not in Torts.

Chapter 6: Proximate or Legal Cause (Title comes from the book. I divided my outlines either by the syllabus or by the book chapters.)

(This is a little summary paragraph of the chapter that I wrote. I did this in Torts because my professor followed the book closely and I found it helpful to be able to summarize the entire concept in a short paragraph. I didn't do it in all classes.)
Proximate cause is different from causation in fact. Cause in fact refers to the cause and effect relationship between the P’s injury and the D’s tortious conduct.  It almost always deals with “but for” causation; the only exceptions are concurrent causation and the market share theory. The D’s conduct is a cause of the act. For proximate cause, the question is whether there should be legal liability after cause in fact is established. It’s a policy decision by the legislatures or the courts to deny liability for conduct that would otherwise be actionable. Proximate cause cuts off liability even where there is cause in fact.

(Section A gets its name from a chapter subheading of the same name. I almost always summarized the concept in my own words first.)
A. Unforeseeable Consequences – if a result is too far out, too hard to foresee, even if D’s actions caused it in fact, D may not be held liable. This law has changed; in older cases, no recovery was allowed where the damage wasn’t foreseeable, but now there is more flexibility. Furthermore there are times when D is responsible even if the result wasn’t foreseeable.

(After I had summarized the subchapter, I started a series of numbered points that I thought were important. I haven't listed them all here, but this is one example. In this case, my professor talked about the different approaches to liability and unforeseeability.)
   1. Some courts say that if the result wasn’t reasonably foreseeable, no recovery for P (the foreseeability approach) – this view relies on the concept that there could be endless recovery for D if recovery is allowed for any harm that results from the tortious conduct.  Therefore, recovery is limited to those cases where the result was of a generally foreseeable nature.

(Items a. and b. are cases that we read that illustrate the point of 1. I tried to bury the cases under the concepts in my outline because the concrete examples of the concept helped me understand the concept better.)
       a. Ryan v. New York Central R.R. Co. (NY, 1866) – D operates one of its engines negligently and sets fire to a woodshed on its property. The fire in turn caused P’s house, which was located 130 ft. from the shed, to burn down. P sued for negligence for the value of his destroyed property. Held that while there was negligent operation of the engine, placing liability on D for the destruction of P’s house is too far out. Court says this “would create a liability which would be the destruction of all civilized society.” (I included this quote because I liked it. The summary itself is based off of an Emmanuel's summary and my notes. I liked the little case summaries in Emmanuel's.)

(Points i-iii are from my class notes. The professor made these points about the case explicitly, so I included them in my outline. He didn't necessarily link the points to the case in class, but since my notes show them as associated, I put them under the case.)
          i. This case is definitely a minority rule now, if followed at all – now the D would be liable to P. There is liability when a fire spreads from one building to another.
          ii. Role of insurance as a policy consideration – in this case, the court talked about how D can insure his own property but not other people’s. However, that isn’t true now as liability insurance can be purchased for protecting property other than your own.
          iii. If the result is foreseeable, but the manner in which it occurs is unforeseeable, usually still liability for D – even if the method by which the foreseeable result happens is very weird, D doesn’t escape responsibility b/c the result is foreseeable.

(This is a second case about the same concept.)
       b. Wagon Mound No. 1 (Australia, 1961) – D’s ship spilled oil into a bay. Some of the oil sticks to the P’s wharf. P’s use of wharf is slightly injured, but so slight that no damage claim was made.  P’s workers then drop some molten metal which sets some waste floating in the water on fire. Because of this, the entire dock is burnt down. Held that D wasn’t liable even though their act was the cause in fact of the destruction. Court ruled that D shouldn’t be held liable because the fire was unforeseeable and D’s original negligence was slight.

I think that's probably enough to get a sense of how I organized things. Remember that I am awfully wordy; outlines don't have to be this wordy. I like excess verbiage.