Claudia Piña Martínez

Helen Palsgraf, Respondent, v The Long Island Railroad Company, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York

Argued February 24, 1928

Decided May 29, 1928

Facts:

Plaintiff was standing on a platform of defendant's railroad after buying a ticket to go to Rockaway
Beach. A train stopped at the station, bound for another place. Two men ran forward to catch it.
One of the men reached the platform of the car without mishap [mis-jap] , though the train was
already moving. The other man, carrying a package, jumped aboard the car, but seemed unsteady
as if about to fall. A guard on the car, who had held the door open, reached forward to help him
in, and another guard on the platform pushed him from behind. In this act, the package was
dislodged, and fell upon the rails. It was a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was
covered by a newspaper. In fact it contained fireworks, but there was nothing in its appearance to
give notice of its contents. The fireworks when they fell exploded. The shock of the explosion threw
down some scales at the other end of the platform, many feet away. The scales struck the plaintiff,
causing injuries for which she sues.

Issue:

Whether or not a person is protected from a wrong or a conduct to someone else.

Rule:

 Negligence is not actionable unless it involves the invasion of a legally protected interest,
the violation of a right.

 Negligence is the absence of care, according to the circumstances.

 In every instance, before negligence can be predicated of a given act, back of the act must
be sought and found a duty to the individual complaining, the observance of which would
have averted or avoided the injury.
 Claudia Piña Martínez

 The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyes, and risk imports
relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension.

For negligence you need to satisfy 4 elements:

1) Duty – you need to make sure that the defendant owned a legal duty.

2) Breach of duty – the defendant breached the legal duty by acting or failing to act in a
certain way.

3) Causation – it was the defendant’s action or inaction that caused the plaintiff’s injure.

4) Damages – whether or not the plaintiff was hurt or injured as a result of the defendant’s
actions.

The standard is the same thing. You need to look at it like the ordinary, reasonable, prudent would
do.

Let’s talk about duty. How to analyze a case like this. When assessing a negligence case the first
thing is to look and see whether or not the defendant owed the P a legal duty of care. In this case,
did the d owe a duty of care to p? Just like a doctor owes the pacient a legal duty, the relationship
between the D and P created a legal duty. Railroad Co owed P a legal duty. At the same time, in
this case, the D owed a duty to P to act with reasonable care in a certain situation.

After you have established if there is a legal duty, now you have to see if there was a breach of it.
Comparing what a reasonably prudent person would do under similar circumstances. The D likely
would be found negligent in the average person?

Causation. The third element requires that P show that D negligence actually caused his or her
injury. Can P prove causation. Yes they caused the injuries.

Damages. This element requires that the court compensates for the injury.

Holding:

The conduct of the defendant's guard, if a wrong in its relation to the holder of the package, was
not a wrong in its relation to the plaintiff, standing far away. Relatively to her it was not negligence
 Claudia Piña Martínez

at all. Nothing in the situation gave notice that the falling package had in it the potency of peril to
persons thus removed.

The defendant was negligence but could not be held liable for an injury that could not be
reasonably foreseen.

Analysis:

If the harm was not willful, P must show that the act as to him had possibilities of danger so many
and apparent as to entitle him to be protected against the doing of it though the harm was
unintended.

Conclusion:

The judgment of the Appellate Division and that of the Trial Term should be reversed, and the
complaint dismissed, with costs in all courts.

Notes: