Also known as: scope of risk rule · scope-of-risk rules · scope of the risk
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A principle that limits an actor's liability for harm to those results that fall within the risks that made the actor's conduct tortious or criminal. The rule treats an intervening force as non-superseding when the harm remains the type of injury the original conduct foreseeably risked creating or increasing.
Prime Flight routed an unstable prototype drone over a daycare play area to save time. The drone lost control and crashed into the adjacent street, injuring Wade who was walking home from school. Because the routing decision created the very risk of crash-related injury to persons in the immediate vicinity, the scope-of-risk rule treats the malfunction and resulting harm as within the dangers that made the conduct negligent, so Prime Flight remains liable to Wade.
A driver negligently struck a child in view of the child's mother who stood nearby. The mother suffered severe emotional distress. Under the scope-of-risk rule the mother's harm fell within the risks that made the driving negligent because the conduct created a foreseeable danger of physical injury to persons in the immediate area, supporting liability for the emotional injury as well.
On September 27, 1964, at approximately 4:30 p.m., at the intersection of Blue Ridge Road and Chenango Avenue in Sacramento County, defendant David Legg operated his motor vehicle in such a manner that it struck and killed two-year-old Erin Lee Dillon. Plaintiff Cheryl Dillon, the mother of the deceased child, was a pedestrian at or near the intersection in close proximity to the accident and actually witnessed the impact and death of her daughter. Plaintiff Robert Dillon, the minor brother of the deceased, was also a pedestrian in close proximity to the accident and witnessed the impact and death of his sister. The complaint set forth three separate counts seeking recovery for the resulting injuries. In the first count, Cheryl Dillon alleged that as a direct and proximate result of the defendant's negligence she suffered fright, shock, and mental anguish and sustained physical injuries along with great emotional and physical pain and suffering. The second count alleged that Robert Dillon suffered great emotional and physical pain and suffering as a direct and proximate result of witnessing the accident. The third count alleged that Clyde Dillon, the father of the deceased minor, sustained a loss of the affection, society, and companionship of his daughter and incurred funeral and burial expenses. Defendant demurred to the complaint on the ground that it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The trial court sustained the demurrers without leave to amend and entered a judgment of dismissal in favor of the defendant. Plaintiffs appealed from that judgment to the Supreme Court of California. In related proceedings, the trial court granted a motion for judgment on the pleadings against the mother's cause of action but denied a similar motion as to the sister's cause of action, and later denied a motion for summary judgment on the sister's claim. The case thus presented claims by a mother who was not within the zone of danger and by a sibling who may have been within it.
View caseThe rule holds that an intervening force does not relieve the actor of liability when the harm remains within the risks the negligent conduct created or increased. Only when a third person intentionally causes harm outside that risk does the rule cut off liability.
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No. The rule focuses on the type of harm rather than the exact mechanism. As long as the injury is the same general kind that made the conduct risky, variations in how the harm occurs do not defeat liability.
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An event is too remote when the resulting harm differs in kind from the risks that made the conduct tortious or criminal. Extraordinary or bizarre outcomes that bear no fair relation to the original risk fall outside the rule's protection of liability.
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In criminal cases the rule requires that the actual result be within the risk the actor consciously disregarded and not so remote or accidental that liability would be unjust. The same type-of-harm inquiry used in torts governs whether the result supports conviction.
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…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…