Also known as: scope of risk analysis · scope-of-risk analyses · scope of the risk
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A method of determining proximate causation under which an actor remains liable for harm that occurs through intervening forces when the harm falls within the risks that made the conduct negligent or reckless. Liability is cut off only when the actual result is so remote or accidental that it would be unjust to impose responsibility.
Rico deliberately sold far more tickets than the venue could safely hold. When an unexpected rainstorm drove the crowd into a narrow corridor, several people were crushed. Because the crush injuries were the very type of harm that the overcrowding risked, scope-of-risk analysis holds Rico liable even though the storm intervened.
Lena skipped the required final road test on a repaired car. The next day the car suffered total brake failure on a steep hill and killed the driver. Scope-of-risk analysis treats the fatal crash as within the risk created by the omitted test, so causation is satisfied and liability attaches.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Scope-of-risk analysis requires both factual causation and that the harm fall within the risks that made the conduct culpable. A but-for link alone is insufficient if the result is too remote or of a different kind from the risks created.
Supporting sources
An intervening event breaks the chain only when the resulting harm is so remote or accidental that it would be unjust to hold the actor liable. Foreseeable weather or ordinary responses to the created danger do not sever liability.
Supporting sources
Yes. When a statute requires recklessly causing a result, the actual harm must be within the risk of which the actor was aware and not too remote or accidental to support liability.
Supporting sources
The harm must be of the same general kind that made the conduct risky. A gas-line explosion and distant death are too remote from the risk of obscured vision on a roadway, so liability fails.
Supporting sources
…to those risks or hazards whose likelihood made the conduct unreasonably dangerous. Duty, in other words, is measured by the scope of the risk which negligent conduct foreseeably entails." (2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts, supra, at p. 1018; fns. omitted.) [6a] This foreseeable risk may be of two types. The first class…