Eight Feet of Trailer in the Travel Lane
At 11 p.m. an Acme Freight driver double-parks on a two-lane highway, leaving eight feet of the rig in the travel lane, then walks away without setting flares or hazard lights. Maya drives up, glances at her phone for three seconds, swerves to avoid the truck, and hits a guardrail. Her car stalls in the lane and steam fills the cabin. Ben, a passing motorist, breaks the window, cuts Maya's forearm on the broken glass while pulling her out, and wrenches his back lifting her. Fire then destroys the car. Maya's phone records confirm the glance. Ben had declined a bystander's offer to call 911 and went in just as flames appeared. Acme's insurer argues the crash was Maya's fault and that Ben assumed the risk.
1. Was Acme's double-parking a cause of Maya's injuries, and what does her phone glance do to her claim?
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Acme is a cause; the glance is comparative fault, not a superseding cause.
Actual cause. But-for the rig blocking eight feet of the lane at night with no lights or flares, Maya does not swerve. Her glance does not break the chain - a defendant takes the plaintiff as he finds her, distractions included.
Proximate cause. It is entirely foreseeable that an unlit truck in a travel lane after dark will cause a swerving collision. The presence of a rescue attempt afterward is also foreseeable. Acme's violation of the lighting/flare statute supports negligence per se if Maya is within the class the statute protects - she is.
Maya's conduct. Her three-second glance is negligence. In a pure comparative jurisdiction her recovery is reduced by her percentage of fault, but she still recovers. In a contributory-negligence jurisdiction the same fact would bar her entirely - the answer must identify which regime governs before concluding.
The insurer's framing fails because it treats two negligent actors as though only one can be at fault. Concurrent negligence is the ordinary case, not the exception.
2. Is Ben liable to Maya for the cut on her arm?
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Almost certainly not.
The emergency doctrine. A person responding to a sudden emergency not of her own making is held to what a reasonable person would do under those stressful conditions, not to hindsight precision. Maya's arm was cut while Ben was breaking a window to reach her in a steaming car.
The rescuer standard. A rescuer is liable only for reckless or wanton misconduct or gross negligence - not for ordinary carelessness in a hurried extraction. Cutting a forearm on glass while breaking a window is exactly the kind of incidental injury the standard tolerates.
Consent and necessity. Pulling an unconscious or panicked occupant from a burning vehicle is privileged by private necessity. Maya cannot recover for a reasonable, non-negligent execution of a rescue.
Where Ben could go wrong. If he had, say, dragged her by a clearly fractured neck or dropped her headfirst onto pavement, the analysis shifts. The hypothetical gives no such facts - the glass cut is a foreseeable artifact of the rescue itself, not a breach.
3. Can Ben recover from Acme for his back injury?
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Likely yes, subject to a real caveat about his conduct.
The rescue doctrine. One who negligently creates a peril owes a duty to rescuers, because rescues are foreseeable. Ben's injury is therefore within the scope of Acme's negligence, and Acme cannot argue Ben assumed the risk merely by choosing to help - that is the whole function of the doctrine.
Comparative fault still applies. Ben must have acted as a reasonable rescuer. Two facts are uncomfortable for him: he waved off an offer to call 911, and he entered as flames appeared. A jury could find that a reasonable rescuer would have waited seconds for professional help, or allowed a bystander to call while he approached - in which case his recovery is reduced, not eliminated, under pure comparative fault.
The competing risk. If the court characterizes his entry into a visibly engulfed vehicle as reckless, Acme's argument strengthens considerably and in a contributory-negligence jurisdiction could bar him.
The exam point is that the rescue doctrine answers duty, not comparative fault. Students who invoke the doctrine and stop there have answered only half the question.