Friday, March 23, 2012

STUBBS V. CITY OF ROCHESTER case brief

 STUBBS V. CITY OF ROCHESTER
• city of Rochester mixed up drinking water and firefighting water
• Hemlock water – drinking water
• Holly water – firefighting water
• Plaintiff Stubs contracted typhoid fever after drinking contaminated water
• Type II causal uncertainty case (one source of water, multiple possible causes of injury)
• Latency period between drinking of polluted water and symptoms of typhoid fever
• Court relaxes cause-in-fact requirement and replaces it with ‘reasonable certainty’; can’t prove cause-in-fact
• Can’t be absolutely sure because of the nature of the injury, but we can be reasonably certain that Stubbs got typhoid fever from drinking the polluted water
• P’s evidence: expert testimony saying Stubbs contracted typhoid fever from the bad water; group of people who drank the water got typhoid fever
• Defense argument – P still must show that he didn’t get typhoid fever from any other cause
• Only water he drank all summer was in Rochester
• Holding – reversed for plaintiff (new trial)
• Not conjecture because P can bring forth reasonable proof of causation, even though not cause-in-fact

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