could, the definition would not be of much use for the guidance of juries. If English law seems vague on these questions, it is because, in the analysis made necessary by the separation of findings of fact from conclusions of law, it has grappled more closely with the inherent vagueness of facts than any other system. We may now take some illustrations of the rule of "natural and probable consequences as it is generally accepted. In whatever form we state it, we must remember that it is not a logical definition, but only a guide to the exercise of common sense. The lawyer cannot afford to adventure himself with philosophers in the logical and metaphysical controversies that beset the idea of cause. In Vandenburgh v. Truax (8), decided by the Supreme Vandenburgh v. Court of New York in 1847, the plaintiff's servant and the Truax. defendant quarrelled in the street. The defendant took hold of the servant, who broke loose from him and ran away; "the defendant took up a pick-axe and followed the boy, who fled into the plaintiff's store, and the defendant pursued him there, with the pick-axe in his hand." In running behind the counter for shelter the servant knocked out the faucet from a cask of wine, whereby the wine ran out and was lost. Here the defendant (whatever the merits of the original quarrel) was clearly a wrongdoer in pursuing the boy; the plaintiff's house was a natural place for his servant to take refuge in, and it was also natural that the servant, "fleeing for his life from a man in hot pursuit armed with a deadly weapon," should, in his hasty movements, do some damage to the plaintiff's property in the shop. said Fry L. J., "involves much difficulty in philosophy as in law": Seton v. Lafone (1887) 19 Q. B. Div. at p. 74, 56 L. J. Q. B. 415. (8) 4 Denio, 464. The decision seems to be generally accepted as good law. P. D Guille v. Liability for conse There was a curious earlier case in the same State (†), where one Guille, after going up in a balloon, came down in Swan's garden. A crowd of people, attracted by the balloon, broke into the garden and trod down the vegetables and flowers. Guille's descent was in itself plainly a trespass; and he was held liable not only for the damage done by the balloon itself but for that which was done by the crowd. "If his descent under such circumstances would, ordinarily and naturally, draw a crowd of people about him, either from curiosity, or for the purpose of rescuing him from a perilous situation; all this he ought to have foreseen, and must be responsible for" (u). In both these cases the squib case was commented and relied on. Similarly it has many times been said, and it is undoubted law, that if a man lets loose a dangerous animal in an inhabited place he is liable for all the mischief it may do. The balloon case illustrates what was observed in the quences of first chapter on the place of trespass in the law of torts. trespass. The trespass was not in the common sense wilful; Guille certainly did not mean to come down into Swan's garden, which he did, in fact, with some danger to himself. But a man who goes up in a balloon must know that he has to come down somewhere, and that he cannot be sure of coming down in a place which he is entitled to use for that purpose, or where his descent will cause no damage and excite no objection. Guille's liability was accordingly the same as if the balloon had been under his control, and he had guided it into Swan's garden. If balloons were as (t) Guille v. Swan (1822) 19 Johns. 381. (u) Per Spencer C.J. It appeared that the defendant (plaintiff in error) had called for help; but this was treated as immaterial. The recent Scottish case of Scott's Trustees v. Moss (1889), 17 Ct. of Sess. C. 4th S. 32, is hardly so strong, for there a parachute descent was not only contemplated but advertised as a public entertainment. manageable as a vessel at sea, and by some accident which could not be ascribed to any fault of the traveller the steering apparatus got out of order, and so the balloon drifted into a neighbour's garden, the result might be different. So, if a landslip carries away my land and house from a hillside on which the house is built, and myself in the house, and leaves all overlying a neighbour's field in the valley, it cannot be said that I am liable for the damage to my neighbour's land; indeed, there is not even a technical trespass, for there is no voluntary act at all. But where trespass to property is committed by a voluntary act, known or not known to be an infringement of another's right, there the trespasser, as regards liability for consequences, is on the same footing as a wilful wrong-doer. quence too Glover v. A simple example of a consequence too remote to be Conseground for liability, though it was part of the incidents remote: following on a wrongful act, is afforded by Glover v. L. & S. ir. London and South Western Railway Company (e). The Rail. Co. plaintiff, being a passenger on the railway, was charged by the company's ticket collector, wrongly as it turned out, with not having a ticket, and was removed from the train by the company's servants with no more force than was necessary for the purpose. He left a pair of race-glasses in the carriage, which were lost; and he sought to hold the company liable not only for the personal assault committed by taking him out of the train, but for the value of these glasses. The Court held without difficulty that the loss was not the "necessary consequence" or "immediate result" of the wrongful act: for there was nothing to show that the plaintiff was prevented from taking his glasses (v) (1867) L. R. 3 Q. B. 25, 37 L. J. Q. B. 57. Question of what is criminal law. with him, or that he would not have got them if after leaving the carriage he had asked for them. In criminal law the question not unfrequently occurs, on killing in a charge of murder or manslaughter, whether a certain act or neglect was the "immediate cause" of the death of the deceased person. We shall not enter here upon the cases on this head; but the comparison of them will be found interesting. They are collected by Mr. Justice Stephen (x). Liability for negli. gence depends on pro conse quence, i.c. its reasonable man. The doctrine of "natural and probable consequence" is most clearly illustrated, however, in the law of negligence. For there the substance of the wrong itself is failure to bability of act with due foresight: it has been defined as "the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided upon capability those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of being foreseen of human affairs, would do, or doing something which a by a prudent and reasonable man would not do" (y). Now a reasonable man can be guided only by a reasonable estimate of probabilities. If men went about to guard themselves against every risk to themselves or others which might by ingenious conjecture be conceived as possible, human affairs could not be carried on at all. The reasonable man, then, to whose ideal behaviour we are to look as the standard of duty, will neither neglect what he can forecast as probable, nor waste his anxiety on events that are barely possible. He will order his precaution by the measure of what appears likely in the known course of things. This being the standard, it follows that if in a particular case (not being within certain special and more stringent rules) the harm complained of is not such as a (x) Digest of the Criminal Law, Arts. 219, 220. (y) Alderson B. in Blyth v. Birmingham Waterworks Co. (1856) 11 Ex. 781; 25 L. J. Ex. 212. This is not a complete definition, since a man is not liable for even wilful omission without some antecedent ground of duty. But of that hereafter. reasonable man in the defendant's place should have foreseen as likely to happen, there is no wrong and no liability. And the statement proposed, though not positively laid down, in Greenland v. Chaplin (≈), namely, "that a person is expected to anticipate and guard against all reasonable consequences, but that he is not, by the law of England, expected to anticipate and guard against that which no reasonable man would expect to occur," appears to contain the only rule tenable on principle where the liability is founded solely on negligence. "Mischief which could by no possibility have been foreseen, and which no reasonable person would have anticipated," may be the ground of legal compensation under some rule of exceptional severity, and such rules, for various reasons, exist; but under an ordinary rule of due care and caution it cannot be taken into account. Hill v. Co. We shall now give examples on either side of the line. Examples: In Hill v. New River Company (a), the defendant company New River had in the course of their works caused a stream of water to spout up in the middle of a public road, without making any provision, such as fencing or watching it, for the safety of persons using the highway. As the plaintiff's horses and carriage were being driven along the road, the horses shied at the water, dashed across the road, and fell into an open excavation by the roadside which had been made by persons and for purposes unconnected with the water company. It was argued that the immediate cause of the injuries to man, horses, and carriage ensuing upon this fall was not the unlawful act of the water company, but the neglect of the contractors who had made the cutting in leaving it open and unfenced. But the Court held that (2) Per Pollock C. B. (1850) 5 Ex. at p. 248. (a) 9 B. & S. 303 (1868); cp. Harris v. Mobbs (Denman J. 1878) |