Tort Law

Scott v. Shepherd

(1773) 2 Wm. Bl. 892; 96 Eng. Rep. 525

Facts

• Shepherd threw a lit squib, a small explosive firework, into a crowded marketplace.
• The squib landed near a stall belonging to Yates.
• Willis, who was standing nearby, picked up the burning squib and threw it away to protect himself and Yates’s goods.
• The squib then landed close to Ryal.
• Ryal also picked it up and threw it away to avoid injury and protect nearby property.
• The burning squib finally struck Scott in the face.
• It exploded and seriously injured his eye.
• Scott sued Shepherd in trespass.
• Shepherd argued that the injury was not the direct consequence of his act because Willis and Ryal had independently handled and thrown the squib.
• He claimed that their conduct broke the chain of causation.
• The historical procedural issue concerned whether Scott should sue in trespass or an action on the case.
• The enduring Tort Law significance concerns causation and intervening acts.

• Whether Shepherd’s original act remained the legal cause of Scott’s injury.
• Whether the actions of Willis and Ryal constituted independent intervening acts.
• Whether actions taken instinctively under emergency pressure break the chain of causation.
• Whether Scott’s injury was sufficiently direct and foreseeable.

• A defendant remains liable where subsequent conduct is a natural, reasonable or compelled response to the danger created by the defendant.
• An intervening act breaks the chain only where it is sufficiently:
o voluntary;
o independent;
o unreasonable; and
o capable of replacing the defendant’s wrongdoing as the operative cause.
• Conduct performed instinctively or under the pressure of immediate self-preservation is not ordinarily regarded as a free and independent cause.
• A person who intentionally creates a continuing danger is responsible for the natural consequences while that danger remains active.
• The exact route through which the danger operates need not be intended.

• Shepherd intentionally threw an activated explosive into a crowded public place.
• The squib continued burning throughout the sequence.
• It presented an immediate danger to every person near it.
• Willis did not calmly decide to create a new danger for an independent purpose.
• He reacted urgently to remove the squib from himself and the stall.
• Ryal responded under the same emergency pressure.
• Neither had time to calculate a perfectly safe method of disposal.
• Their conduct was therefore treated as part of the continuing movement of the force originally created by Shepherd.
• It was entirely predictable that persons faced with a burning explosive would attempt to throw it away.
• The injury to Scott was also of the general type naturally associated with throwing a lit squib into a crowd.
• Shepherd could not avoid liability by relying upon reactions his own wrongful act compelled.
• Had Willis or Ryal deliberately retained the squib, formed a new malicious purpose and independently thrown it at Scott, the analysis might have been different.
• On the actual facts, the emergency reactions did not displace Shepherd’s responsibility.

• The majority held Shepherd liable for Scott’s injury.
• The actions of Willis and Ryal did not break the chain of causation because they were instinctive responses to the immediate danger.
• Shepherd’s original wrongful act remained the operative cause.
• The case became known as the “flying squib case.”