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28 Tex. L. Rev. 621 (1949-1950)
Proximate Cause in Texas Negligence Law III

handle is hein.journals/tlr28 and id is 647 raw text is: TEXAS LAW REVIEW Vol. 28 MAY, 1950 No. 5 PROXIMATE CAUSE IN TEXAS NEGLIGENCE LAW* LEoN GREENf I NEW AND INDEPENDENT CAUSE The new and independent cause usage is more complex and treacherous than that of sole proximate cause. The idea is that instead of the other defendant, or other person or factor being the sole cause the conduct of the other defendant or third party, or some other factor, enters the picture and breaks the chain of causation and itself be- comes the proximate cause so that defendant's admitted negligence is no7longer active, operative, efficient, but though still a cause becomes a remote cause, a condition, passive, etc., and thus not the proximate cause of the plaintiff's hurt. This is not an all inclusive statement of the concept for that cannot be made, but at least the concept requires the presence of other cause factors and naturally a defendant is anxious to discover as many causes as possible to immunize himself from lia- bility. Whether a new and independent cause can become a sole proximate cause is not clear, but presumably it may. As with sole proximate cause defendant's conduct as a concurring cause is an antidote, and if defendant's wrongdoing simply concurs with other causes and is still proximate, he does not escape. New and inde- pendent cause like every cause concept tends to roll a case into a cause lump and shut out from consideration other essential elements of liability. The new and independent cause doctrine in Texas is ascribed to the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in Milwaukee & St. P. Ry. v. Kellogg.1 Defendants owned a steamboat which landed during a high wind, alongside defendants' elevator built of pine lumber, setting the elevator on fire which was transmitted to Kellogg's sawmill *This is the second installment of an article begun at p. 471 of this volume. +Professor of Law, The University of Texas; formerly Professor of Law, Yale University, and Dean and Professor of Law, Northwestern University. 194- U.S. 469 (1876).

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