Essay Flashcards

A mall owner, D, negligently fails to maintain an escalator in a busy shopping center, allowing it to stall and injure a passerby, E, who is attempting to alight. In the ensuing panic, a store employee, F, tries to help E and, in the course of guiding him, accidentally knocks over a display that falls and injures E further; during the evacuation, F sustains injuries himself. (a) Identify the doctrine at issue and the governing rule regarding whether F’s acts constitute an intervening cause that relieves D of liability or a foreseeable consequence that does not break the chain of causation. (b) Distinguish the controlling rule for distinguishing distinct intervening/superseding causes in Philippine tort law. (c) Apply the rule to these facts and determine whether D remains liable for E’s injuries and for F’s injuries.