“‘Proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do …’”.
Palsgraf v. The Long Island Railroad Company, 248 NY 339 (1928).
85 years ago, a passenger was standing on a railroad platform in New York after buying a ticket to go to Rockaway Beach. Just then, on the other side of the station, a package exploded. The force of the explosion knocked over a large object that struck and injured the passenger while she waited on the platform. She sued, claiming that the railroad was negligent because the explosion occurred when a man dropped a package of fireworks, which were concealed inside the daily newspaper, while a railroad employee helped him board a moving train.
At first, the injured woman prevailed. Then, a higher court overturned the lower courts and ruled in favor of the railroad. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Cardozo held that the conduct of the railroad employee (i.e., trying to help the man board a moving train with one hand) may have been negligent towards the man with the package, but it was not negligent as towards the woman passenger who was standing on the other side of the train station, because the employee’s duty did not extend further than the consequences that he could have reasonably foreseen.
Thus, the railroad had no duty to protect the woman from the explosion of the fireworks, because there was no way its employee could have reasonably foreseen that helping a man with a newspaper board a train would cause an object to fall over onto a woman standing on the opposite side of the station, outside the “orbit of danger.” Id.
