You were also looking for an example. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.I stab you in the leg. You go to the hospital for treatment, where you slip on a puddle, hit your head on the floor, and die due to brain damage caused in the fall. Though this passes the "cause in fact" but-for test, but for my stabbing you never would have slipped in the hospital, it doesn't pass the proximate cause test. You slipping and falling in the hospital wasn't at all forseeable and I can't be held responsible for it.
Stabbing someone in the leg isn't negligence though....it's an intentional tort, like Battery. It's also a criminal act.
QuoteStabbing someone in the leg isn't negligence though....it's an intentional tort, like Battery. It's also a criminal act. It is negligence too isn't it?Duty - You have a duty to act as a reasonable person, and stabbing is an affirmative act so you can't claim nonfeasance.Breach - A reasonable person doesn't stab someone in the leg absent some mitigating circumstance that would make it reasonable.Cause in Fact - But for the stabbing, the leg would not be injured.Proximate Cause (3 tests) - The stabbing is the direct cause of the leg injury (nothing breaks the chain of causation). The leg injury is a foreseeable result of the stabbing. The stabbing is a substantial factor in causing the leg injury.Harm - the leg was injured by the stabbing.While this may also be a battery, this meets all of the elements of negligence.
There can't be negligent battery because battery is by definition an intentional tort.You certainly could, however, in the same complaint, argue that1) B is liable to A for battery, or, in the alternative,2) B caused a harmful contact against A due to B's negligence or recklessness