Friday, October 19, 2012

Medcalf v. Washington Heights Condo Association case brief

Medcalf v. Washington Heights Condo Association (2000)
57 Conn. App. 12

Procedural History
•    Defendants condominium association and management company appealed a judgment for plaintiff, by the Superior Court in the Judicial District of Stamford-Norwalk (Connecticut), on grounds that the court should have entered judgment for defendant on plaintiff’s negligence claim as a matter of law.

Facts
•    Plaintiff became the victim of a violent assault as she waited in the lobby of defendants’ apartment building, while her hosts struggled to admit her by using an electronic buzzer that did not work. The jury indicated in interrogatories that the verdict for plaintiff was based entirely on a finding that defendants were negligent in failing to maintain the building telephone security intercom communication system to protect plaintiff and others.
•    The court held that the trial court should have entered judgment for defendants as a matter of law, because plaintiff failed to establish an essential element of negligence, proximate cause. The intervening criminal act of the assailant was not within the scope of risk created by defendants’ lack of maintenance, because the primary reason buildings have buzzer systems is to protect residents, not guests.

Issue
•    Is proximate cause an actual cause that is a substantial factor in the resulting harm?

Rule
•    proximate cause IS an actual cause that is a substantial factor in the resulting harm

Application
•    To prevail on a negligence claim, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant’s conduct was the legal cause of the injuries.
•    The first component of legal cause is causation in fact. Causation in fact is the purest legal application of legal cause. The test for cause in fact is, simply, would the injury have occurred were it not for the actor’s conduct.
•    Proximate cause establishes a reasonable connection between an act or omission of a defendant and the harm suffered by a plaintiff.
•    Proximate cause is an actual cause that is a substantial factor in the resulting harm, looking to whether the harm which occurred was of the same general nature as the foreseeable risk created by the defendant’s negligence
•    Proximate cause is an actual cause that is a substantial factor in the resulting harm, looking to whether the harm which occurred was of the same general nature as the foreseeable risk created by the defendant’s negligence
•    The substantial factor test reflects the inquiry fundamental to all proximate cause questions, that is, whether the harm which occurred was of the same general nature as the foreseeable risk created by the defendant’s negligence.”

Holding
•    The court reversed and remanded because as a matter of law a jury could not reasonably have found that failure to fix an intercom was the proximate cause of an assault on plaintiff and resultant injury, so there could be no finding of negligence.


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