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