the opinions in the two cases named, but I fear that there may be such an impression produced. "First cause," "initial cause," "efficient cause," and "proximate cause," all mean the same thing in the law of negligence. They mean the cause acting first and immediately producing the injury, or setting other causes in motion, all constituting a natural and continuous chain of events each having a close causal connection with its immediate predecessor; the final event in the chain immediately effecting the injury as a natural and probable result of the cause which first acted, and the person responsible for the first event having reasonable ground to expect at the moment of his act or default that a personal injury to some person might probably result therefrom. There may be pre-existing conditions or events without which the final injury could not have happened, such as the momentary shying of a horse on a defective highway, the inadvertent and non-negligent misstep of a traveler into a dangerous excavation close to the sidewalk. . . . But none of these is to be deemed a cause of the final injury, any more than the mere presence of the injured person on the scene of the accident. They are not links, either initial or otherwise, in the legal chain of responsible causation, and should not be referred to as such, even though in ordinary nonlegal parlance they might broadly be termed causes. They are mere circumstances or conditions either existing, or to be expected in the natural order of things to occur at any time. 429. HENRY T. TERRY. Leading Principles of Anglo-American Law. (1882, C. VIII, § 196, pp. 181, 189.) § 196. Reasonableness Depends upon the Party's Situation. When a person is called upon to make a reasonable choice this means one that is reasonable for him in his situation. It is true that the final decision whether or not the conduct was reasonable rests with the jury deciding ex post facto, and the party himself at the time of his act or omission must make at his peril the best guess that he can what a jury in case of any dispute will think about it. Yet the fact which the jury are to decide is whether his conduct was reasonable for him in the circumstances in which he was placed. There is no such thing as reasonableness per se independently of those facts. Moreover — and this is the most important proposition relating to this part of our subject the facts which make up the situation are subjective and not objective facts. It is not the facts as they really exist in the outside world by which the reasonableness of a person's conduct must be tested, but, subject to certain qualifications, the facts as they appear to him. It is unreasonable, for example, to drive a heavily loaded wagon over a bridge that the person knows to be rotten and wholly unsafe; but if the bridge was apparently sound and was not known or believed to be otherwise, the very same act under precisely the same objective conditions might be perfectly reasonable. So one who has possession of a can of nitro-glycerine must in reasonableness use extreme care to prevent an explosion; but very different and objectively much more hazardous conduct would be equally reasonable, if he had been told and believed that the can contained condensed milk. . . . § 204. The Standard-Man Test. The principle above described is usually expressed by saying that the test of reasonableness, or "due care" the want of which is "negligence," is the conduct of a reasonable and prudent man in the party's situation. The knowledge and skill which the party actually has or which can be imputed to him make up the situation, while the other mental and moral qualities mentioned are not a part of the situation but are required to be such as a reasonable and prudent man has; so that conduct which would be actually unreasonable on the part of a person in fact having such qualities in the situation is legally unreasonable for any given normal person. The common expression is not strictly accurate, as the foregoing analysis shows, but it is often nearly enough so to use in charges to the jury, where all that is required is such a statement of the law as will lead them to a practically correct decision of the particular case in hand. Moreover its convenient brevity and its concreteness render it well calculated to make a clear impression upon the mind. For convenience, I shall hereafter refer to the collection of mental and moral attributes referred to in this as those of "standard man," and shall speak of duties which depend upon this criterion as "standard-man duties." A standard man is not an ideally perfect man, but an average one, a fair example of the community, — just such a person in fact as each juror is supposed to be. It is because the jurors are supposed to have themselves the qualities of a standard man that the question of reasonableness is left to them. They are able to say from their own minds without any evidence from outside how such a man would think and act in any given situation.1 430. RIGBY v. HEWITT EXCHEQUER OF PLEAS. 1850 5 Exch. 240 CASE for negligence, for driving the defendant's omnibus, whereby it came in contact with another omnibus on which the plaintiff was sitting, and the plaintiff was thrown off and injured. Plea, Not guilty. At the trial, before ROLFE, B., at the last Liverpool Assizes, it appeared that the plaintiff was a passenger outside an omnibus which, just before the accident, had started from Market Street, Manchester, at the same time as the defendant's omnibus. The drivers were competing for passengers, each endeavouring to get first; and while the Francis H. Bohlen, "The Probable or the Natural Consequence as the Test of Liability in Negligence." (A. L. Reg., XL, 79, 148.) Prescott F. Hall, "Some Observations on the Doctrine of Proximate Cause." (H. L. R., XV, 541.) Joseph W. Bingham, "Some Suggestions concerning Legal Cause at Common Law." (C. L. R., IX, 16, 136.) Edward Jenks, "Negligence and Deceit in the Law of Torts." (L. Q. R., XXVI, 159.) CHAPTERS ON THE JURAL NATURE AND ETHICAL BASIS OF THIS PRINCIPLE: Thomas E. Holland, "Elements of Jurisprudence," 9th ed., c. VIII, par. III, p. 99. Henry T. Terry, "Some Leading Principles of Anglo-American Law," c. VIII, §§ 181-186 (p. 165), §§ 195–217 (p. 181); c. XV, § 533 (p. 547), § 538 (p. 555), §§ 542-551 (p. 558), § 563 (p. 580). Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "The Common Law," Lectures III, IV. omnibuses were going at great speed, in trying to avoid a cart which was in the way, the wheel of the defendant's omnibus came in contact with a projecting step of the omnibus on which the plaintiff was riding, which caused the latter to swing towards the kerbstone. The speed with which it was going rendered it impossible for the driver to pull up, and the seat on which the plaintiff sat struck a lamp-post, and he was thrown off. The learned judge told the jury, that the plaintiff was not disentitled to recover merely because the omnibus on which he sat was driven at a furious rate; and that, if the jury thought that the collision took place from the negligence of the driver of the defendant's omnibus, and that the other omnibus was not in fault in not endeavouring to avoid the accident, then the defendant was liable. The jury having found a verdict for the plaintiff, with £50 damages, Bliss moved for a new trial, on the ground of misdirection (April 18). . . . POLLOCK, C. B., now said: This was an action tried before my Brother ROLFE, at Liverpool, when there was a verdict for the plaintiff, damages £50. . . . My Brother ROLFE directed the jury to ascertain whether the mischief arose from the negligence of the driver of the defendant's omnibus, and the jury found that the collision did arise from that negligence. Mr. Bliss moved for a new trial, on the ground that my Brother ROLFE had not directed the jury, that, if the mischief was in part occasioned by the misconduct of the person driving the omnibus on which the plaintiff was, the defendant would not be responsible. . . . We are all of opinion that there ought to be no rule, and that there is no fault to be found with the direction of my Brother ROLFE. The rest of the Court are entirely of opinion, that, generally speaking, where an injury arises from the misconduct of another, the party who is injured has a right to recover from the injuring party for all the consequences of that injury. On the present occasion I entirely concur with the Court that there ought to be no rule, and that the direction was perfectly right. I am, however, disposed not quite to acquiesce to the full extent in the proposition, that a person is responsible for all the possible consequences of his negligence. I wish to guard against laying down the proposition so universally; but of this I am quite clear, that every person who does a wrong, is at least responsible for all the mischievous consequences that may reasonably be expected to result, under ordinary circumstances, from such misconduct; and I think that, in the situation of these parties, any distinction which I might be disposed to draw in an extreme case does not arise in the one which is now before the Court. We are all of opinion that, in this case, there should be no rule. Rule refused. 431. SHARP v. POWELL COMMON PLEAS. 1872 L. R. 7 C. P. 253 THE defendant's servant (in breach of the Police Act, 2 & 3 Vict. c. 47, § 54) washed a van in a public street, and allowed the waste water to run down the gutter towards a grating leading to the sewer, about twenty-five yards off. In consequence of the extreme severity of the weather, the grating was obstructed by ice, and the water poured over a portion of the causeway, which was ill paved and uneven, and there froze. There was no evidence that the defendant knew of the grating being obstructed. The plaintiff's horse, while being led past the spot, slipped upon the ice and broke its leg. . . . For the plaintiff it was contended that the defendant was responsible for the injury, as being the consequence of his wrongful act, viz., causing his van to be washed in a public highway in breach of an Act of Parliament. For the defendant, it was contended that the damage was too remote, and not the natural, necessary, or probable consequence of the defendant's act. The learned judge nonsuited the plaintiff, reserving leave to him to move to enter a verdict for £25, if the Court (who were to be at liberty to draw inferences of fact) should be of opinion that the damage was not too remote: all powers of amendment being also reserved. A rule nisi having been obtained, ... April 22. H. James, Q. C., and Lanyon, shewed cause. The ruling of the learned judge was correct. . . . In general a man is only liable for such consequences of his tortious or negligent act as might reasonably be anticipated as its result. . . . In Mayne on Damages, p. 15, the general principle is given in these words: "The first, and in fact the only inquiry in all these cases is, whether the damage complained of is the natural and reasonable result of the defendant's act: it will assume this character if it can be shewn to be such a consequence as in the ordinary course of things would flow from the act, or, in cases of contract, if it appears to have been contemplated by both parties. Where neither of these elements exists, the damage is said to be too remote." [BOVILL, C. J. Was there any evidence that the defendant knew of the stoppage of the drain?] None whatever.... BOVILL, C. J. No doubt, one who commits a wrongful act is responsible for the ordinary consequences which are likely to result there from. But, generally speaking, he is not liable for damage which is not the natural or ordinary consequence of such an act, unless it be shewn that he knows, or has reasonable means of knowing, that consequences not usually resulting from the act are, by reason of some exciting cause, likely to intervene so as to occasion damage to a third person. Where there is no reason to expect it, and no knowledge in the person doing the wrongful act that such a state of things exists as to render the damage probable, if injury does result to a third person it is generally considered that the wrongful act is not the proximate cause of the injury, so as to render the wrongdoer liable to an action. In the present case, the learned judge has reserved power to us to draw inferences from the facts; and the proper inference to be drawn from the evidence seems to me that, if the drain had not been stopped, and the road had been in a proper state of repair, the water which the defendant's servant caused to flow into the gutter or channel would have passed away without doing any mischief to any one. Can it, then, be said to have been the ordinary and probable consequence of the defendant's act that the water should have frozen over so large a portion of the street as to occasion a dangerous nuisance? I think not. . . . GROVE, J. I am entirely of the same opinion. I think the act of the defendants was not the ordinary or proximate cause of the damage to the plaintiff's horse, or within the ordinary consequences which the defendant may be presumed to have contemplated, or for which he is responsible. The expression, the "natural" consequence, which has been used in so many cases, and which I myself have no doubt often used, by no means conveys to the mind an adequate notion of what is meant: "probable" would perhaps be a better expression. If on the present occasion the water had been allowed to accumulate round the spot where the washing of the van took place, and had there frozen obviously within the sight of the defendant, and the plaintiff's horse had fallen there, I should have been inclined to think that the defendant would have been responsible for the consequences which had resulted. But there must be some limit to the liability of a man for the consequences of a wrongful act; and it does not by any means follow that, though the act of allowing the water to flow over the street in the first instance was wrongful, the defendant is liable for a stoppage occurring after the water had got back into its proper and accustomed channel. The defendant was not bound to go down the street and see whether or not any obstacle existed at the drain. I cannot therefore see that the damage to the plaintiff's horse was the proximate or the probable result of the washing of the defendant's van in the street rather than in his own stable or coach-house. I think that Mr. Lanyon put the case upon the true ground. The damage complained of was not proximately caused by the original wrongful act of the defendant. . . KEATING, J. After hearing the argument, I must confess I retain the impression I had at the trial. . . . I nonsuited the plaintiff, but gave him leave to move, reserving power to the Court to draw inferences of fact. . . . The damage in question, not being one which the |