Also known as: natural consequences · natural and probable consequence
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A predictable outcome that follows from a particular act or event in the ordinary course of events. The concept supplies the required causal link when an unlawful act or abnormally dangerous condition produces harm that a reasonable observer would anticipate from the conduct.
Norman Nash, unlicensed and driving after dark, swerved to avoid a pothole and struck a power pole. The resulting blackout sent pedestrian Nadia Novak down an unlit stairwell where she died. The death counted as a natural consequence of the traffic misdemeanor because blackout-related falls are the ordinary result of disabling street lighting during an unlawful act.
Northern Manufacturing built a large reservoir on its land to power milling operations. When the embankment failed, water poured into Northstar Logistics' adjacent mine and destroyed equipment. The flooding damage was the natural consequence of storing water on non-natural land use, triggering strict liability regardless of care exercised.
The plaintiff occupied a mine and works under a close of land. The defendants owned a mill in the neighborhood. They proposed to construct a reservoir for storing water to be used about their mill upon another close of land. This close may be taken as adjoining the plaintiff's close, although some intervening land lay between the two. Underneath the defendants' close on which they proposed to construct the reservoir were old and disused mining passages and works. These included five vertical shafts filled up with soil and rubbish along with some horizontal shafts communicating with them. No person was aware of the existence of the vertical shafts or the horizontal works. In the course of working his mine the plaintiff gradually worked through the seams of coal underneath the close and came into contact with the old and disused works underneath the defendants' close. The defendants constructed the reservoir through the agency and inspection of an engineer and contractor. They took no personal part in the works and remained unaware of any want of security. The engineer and contractor did not exercise reasonable care and caution with respect to the vertical shafts. When the reservoir was constructed and filled or partly filled with water, the weight of the water broke through the disused and imperfectly filled-up vertical shafts. The water passed down the shafts into the horizontal workings under the defendants' close and then into the workings under the plaintiff's close, flooding his mine and causing considerable damage. The Court of Exchequer, on a special case stating these facts, held that the plaintiff had established no cause of action. The Court of Exchequer Chamber unanimously arrived at the conclusion that there was a cause of action, and that the Plaintiff was entitled to damages. The defendants appealed to the House of Lords.
View caseNathaniel Newman, a Black applicant, was repeatedly passed over for police-sergeant certification because of earlier discriminatory hiring at the entry level. The resulting scarcity of qualified Black candidates for higher ranks was the natural consequence of the initial barrier, supporting the claim of ongoing disparate impact.
In 1974 and 1975, the Ensley Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and seven black individuals filed separate class-action complaints against the City of Birmingham and the Jefferson County Personnel Board. They alleged racially discriminatory hiring and promotion practices in public service jobs including the fire department in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other federal law. After a bench trial in 1976 on some issues and a second trial in 1979 focused on promotion practices but before judgment, the parties negotiated two consent decrees. One was between the black individuals and the City, and the other was between them and the Board. These proposed decrees set forth an extensive remedial scheme including long-term and interim annual goals for the hiring of blacks as firefighters and goals for promotion of blacks within the fire department. The District Court entered an order provisionally approving the decrees and directing publication of notice of the upcoming fairness hearings. Notice of the hearings with a reference to the general nature of the decrees was published in two local newspapers. At that hearing the Birmingham Firefighters Association appeared and filed objections as amicus curiae. After the hearing but before final approval the BFA and two of its members moved to intervene on the ground that the decrees would adversely affect their rights. The District Court denied the motions as untimely and approved the decrees in August 1981. Seven white firefighters, all members of the BFA, then filed a complaint against the City and the Board seeking injunctive relief against enforcement of the decrees. The District Court denied relief. Both the denial of intervention and the denial of injunctive relief were affirmed on appeal in 1983. A new group of white firefighters, the Wilks respondents, then brought suit against the City and the Board. They alleged that because of their race they were being denied promotions in favor of less qualified blacks in violation of federal law. The Board and the City admitted making race-conscious employment decisions but argued that the decisions were required by the consent decrees. The District Court granted the motion to dismiss after trial, concluding that the promotions of the black individuals were in fact required by the terms of the consent decree. On appeal the Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that because the Wilks respondents were neither parties nor privies to the consent decrees their independent claims of unlawful discrimination are not precluded. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1988.
View caseNoelle North remained in a persistent vegetative state sustained only by feeding tubes. When the tubes were removed under court order, her death followed as the natural consequence of the body's inability to function without artificial intervention.
On the night of January 11, 1983, Nancy Beth Cruzan lost control of her car as she traveled down Elm Road in Jasper County, Missouri. The vehicle overturned, and Cruzan was discovered lying face down in a ditch without detectable respiratory or cardiac function. Paramedics were able to restore her breathing and heartbeat at the accident site, and she was transported to a hospital in an unconscious state. An attending neurosurgeon diagnosed her as having sustained probable cerebral contusions compounded by significant anoxia. The Missouri trial court found that permanent brain damage generally results after six minutes in an anoxic state, and it was estimated that Cruzan was deprived of oxygen from twelve to fourteen minutes. She remained in a coma for approximately three weeks and then progressed to an unconscious state in which she was able to orally ingest some nutrition. Surgeons implanted a gastrostomy feeding and hydration tube in Cruzan with the consent of her then husband. Subsequent rehabilitative efforts proved unavailing. She now lies in a Missouri state hospital in what is commonly referred to as a persistent vegetative state in which a person exhibits motor reflexes but evinces no indications of significant cognitive function. The State of Missouri is bearing the cost of her care. After it had become apparent that Nancy Cruzan had virtually no chance of regaining her mental faculties, her parents Lester and Joyce Cruzan, who serve as coguardians, asked hospital employees to terminate the artificial nutrition and hydration procedures. All agree that such a removal would cause her death. The employees refused to honor the request without court approval. The parents then sought and received authorization from the state trial court for termination. The trial court found that a person in Nancy's condition had a fundamental right under the State and Federal Constitutions to refuse or direct the withdrawal of death prolonging procedures. The court also found that Nancy's expressed thoughts at age twenty-five in conversation with a housemate friend suggested that given her present condition she would not wish to continue on with her nutrition and hydration. The Supreme Court of Missouri reversed by a divided vote. The court recognized a right to refuse treatment embodied in the common-law doctrine of informed consent but expressed skepticism about the application of that doctrine in the circumstances of this case. The court found that Cruzan's statements to her roommate regarding her desire to live or die under those conditions were unreliable for determining her intent and thus insufficient to support the coguardians' claim to exercise substituted judgment on Nancy's behalf. It rejected the argument that Cruzan's parents were entitled to order the termination of her medical treatment, concluding that no person can assume that choice for an incompetent in the absence of the formalities required under Missouri's Living Will statutes or the clear and convincing inherently reliable evidence absent here. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the question whether Cruzan has a right under the United States Constitution which would require the hospital to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from her under these circumstances.
View caseNoreen Nguyen was charged with deliberate homicide after firing into a crowded room. The trial court instructed the jury that a person is presumed to intend the natural consequences of her acts. The instruction relieved the state of proving mens rea and violated due process.
David Sandstrom, an 18-year-old, confessed on November 22, 1976, to the slaying of Annie Jessen. Based on the confession and corroborating evidence, he was charged on December 2 with deliberate homicide under Montana law for purposely or knowingly causing her death. At trial, Sandstrom's attorney told the jury that although his client admitted killing Jessen, he did not do so purposely or knowingly and was therefore guilty only of a lesser crime. The defense relied on testimony from two court-appointed mental health experts describing Sandstrom's mental state, attributing the killing to a personality disorder aggravated by alcohol consumption. The prosecution requested, and over defense objection the trial judge delivered, the instruction that the law presumes a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts. The jury found Sandstrom guilty of deliberate homicide, and he was sentenced to 100 years in prison. Sandstrom appealed to the Supreme Court of Montana, which upheld the conviction. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the constitutionality of the instruction.
View caseNathan Nguyen, sentenced to death, developed severe mental illness that prevented him from understanding the punishment. Carrying out the sentence would produce the natural consequence of executing a person lacking rational comprehension of his fate, violating the Eighth Amendment.
Alvin Bernard Ford was convicted of murder in a Florida state court in 1974 and sentenced to death. There was no suggestion at the time that he was incompetent to stand trial or to be sentenced. In early 1982, while on death row, Ford began to exhibit bizarre behavior that grew more serious over time. After reading about a Ku Klux Klan rally, he developed an obsession with the Klan and delusions that he was the target of a conspiracy involving the Klan and prison guards, who he believed were holding 135 of his friends and family hostage in the prison and torturing his women relatives. He began referring to himself as Pope John Paul III and claimed to have fired prison officials and appointed new justices to the Florida Supreme Court. Ford's counsel arranged for examinations by two psychiatrists. Dr. Jamal Amin evaluated Ford over roughly 14 months using taped conversations, letters, interviews, and medical records and concluded that Ford suffered from a severe mental disease resembling paranoid schizophrenia with suicide potential. Dr. Harold Kaufman interviewed Ford in November 1983 and concluded that Ford had no understanding of why he was being executed, sincerely believed he would not be executed because he owned the prisons and could control the Governor through mind waves, and showed no signs of malingering. Pursuant to Florida Statute § 922.07, Ford's counsel invoked the state procedure for determining competency of a condemned inmate. The Governor appointed a panel of three psychiatrists who together interviewed Ford for approximately 30 minutes in the presence of eight other people. Each psychiatrist filed a separate two- or three-page report. Although the diagnoses differed, all three concluded that Ford had the mental capacity to understand the nature of the death penalty and the reasons why it was imposed on him. On April 30, 1984, the Governor signed a death warrant without explanation or statement. Ford's attorneys unsuccessfully sought a hearing in state court. They then filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, proffering the conflicting findings and subsequent challenges by other psychiatrists. The District Court denied the petition without a hearing. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseMost courts require that the death be a foreseeable or natural consequence of the misdemeanor or non-felony offense. If the underlying act is malum in se, the link is usually satisfied when ordinary risks of the conduct materialize. If the act is merely malum prohibitum, the prosecution must show that the fatal result was within the type of harm the prohibition sought to prevent.
Supporting sources
No. The test asks only whether the death was within the general type of harm that a reasonable person would anticipate from the unlawful conduct. Courts do not demand that the defendant have predicted the exact sequence of events that produced the fatality.
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When a defendant keeps on land anything likely to do mischief if it escapes, liability attaches for all damage that is the natural consequence of the escape. The rule applies even if the defendant exercised reasonable care, because the harm flows directly from the non-natural use itself.
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…of the body's vital functions, including the artificial sustenance of the body itself, then we recognize the right to allow the natural consequence of the removal of those artificial life sustaining measures." Corbett v. D'Alessandro , 487 So. 2d, at 371.