Case law, also used interchangeably with
common law, is a
law that is based on
precedents, that is the
judicial decisions from previous cases, rather than law based on
constitutions,
statutes, or
regulations. Case law uses the detailed facts of a
legal case that have been resolved by
courts or similar
tribunals. These past decisions are called "case law", or precedent. Stare decisis—a Latin phrase meaning "let the decision stand"—is the principle by which judges are bound to such past decisions, drawing on established judicial authority to formulate their positions. (
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Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339, 162
N.E. 99 (1928), is a leading case in
American tort law on the question of
liability to an unforeseeable
plaintiff. The case was heard by the
New York Court of Appeals, the highest state court in
New York; its opinion was written by Chief Judge
Benjamin Cardozo, a leading figure in the development of American
common law and later a
United States Supreme Court justice.
The plaintiff, Helen Palsgraf, was waiting at a
Long Island Rail Road station in August 1924 while taking her daughters to the beach. Two men attempted to board the train before hers; one (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. After the incident, she began to
stammer, and subsequently sued the railroad, arguing that its employees had been
negligent while assisting the man, and that she had been harmed by the neglect. In May 1927 she obtained a jury verdict of $6,000, which the railroad appealed. Palsgraf gained a 3–2 decision in the
Appellate Division, and the railroad appealed again. Cardozo wrote for a 4–3 majority of the Court of Appeals, ruling that there was no negligence because the employees, in helping the man board, did not breach any
duty of care to Palsgraf as injury to her was not a foreseeable harm from aiding a man with a package. The original jury verdict was overturned, and the railroad won the case.
A number of factors, including the bizarre facts and Cardozo's outstanding reputation, made the case prominent in the legal profession, and it remains so, taught to most if not all American
law students in
torts class. Cardozo's conception, that tort liability can only occur when a defendant breaches a duty of care the defendant owes to a plaintiff, causing the injury sued for, has been widely accepted in
American law. In dealing with
proximate cause, many states have taken the approach championed by the Court of Appeals' dissenter in Palsgraf, Judge
William S. Andrews. (
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