Supreme Court, February, 1911. [Vol. 71. In Johnson v. Onondaga Paper Co., 112 App. Div. 667, plaintiff slipped on an oily floor and his leg went into an unguarded belt and pulleys. Under section 81 of the Labor Law it was held to be a case for the jury, there being no intimation that the slipping was the proximate or primary cause. The machine in Kremer v. New York Edison Co., 102 App. Div. 433, was not fitted with an automatic currentbreaker which would have prevented the accident, caused by the negligent turning on of a switch by a fellow servant, and it was said: Of course the absence of the circuit breaker could not in a literal sense be said to have been the cause of this accident; its presence, however, would have prevented it, and its absence, being a breach of duty on the part of the master, was a juridical cause." In Porcella v. Mutual Reserve Fund Life Assn., 50 App. Div. 158, a child slipped while playing upon a pile of building sand in the street and fell into an unguarded elevator shaft. The complaint was dismissed, on the ground that the slipping was the proximate cause; but this was reversed on appeal, the court saying: "There was a direct connection between the wrong of the defendant in maintaining this open and unguarded pit upon the level of the sidewalk and the injury sustained by the infant plaintiff by falling into that pit. That the slipping upon the sidewalk was the first incident in the chain of causation which led to his falling into the pit is quite clear, but the injuries in the pit would not have been sustained but for the wrong of the defendant in allowing it to remain unprotected and unguarded in or by the side of the highway. If the rule as to proximate cause in this case were to be sanctioned then it is obvious that a person slipping upon the highway and into a pit-fall negligently or unlawfully maintained as an appurtenance to property is without remedy against a wrong-doer." In the case of Deegan v. Gutta Percha & Rubber Manufacturing Co., 131 App. Div. 101, the plaintiff's hand was drawn into a machine for which happening the defendant was in no way liable; but it was claimed that subsequent serious injury was caused by the lack of a belt-shifter to stop Misc.] * Supreme Court, February, 1911. the machine. It was claimed that the absence of the shifter was not the proximate cause, the answer to which was given in the opinion as follows: "But the accident of having the hand caught was the condition not the cause of the injuries. It was not the causa causans but the causa sine qua non. * A judgment exactly in point is Taylor v. Felsing (164 Ill. 331), when the servant went into a passageway near the gearing of cogwheels and slipped so that he fell into the wheels. Among other acts or omissions the plaintiff charged negligence in the absence of a known apparatus to stop the wheel. It was contended that if the plaintiff came into contact by an accident of his foot slipping the defendant was not liable. But the court held that the fact that the slipping was accidental could not relieve the master if he were guilty of such negligence in respect to the machine, and the plaintiff exercised due care." Rosenbaum v. Shaffner, 98 Tenn. 624, contained the facts of the purchaser in a storehouse, while examining stoves, striking his foot against the edge of a platform, stumbling and falling to his death through an unguarded elevator shaft. It was held that the proximate cause of the accident was the negligent act of leaving the elevator shaft unguarded, and not the fall caused by the stumbling from the platform. It was said: "The stumbling on the platform was the cause of the fall, but it might not have been injurious but for the open elevator shaft, and if that was negligently left open, and in consequence the deceased was killed, the defendant would be liable." Innumerable have been the cases where accidents have happened through the negligence of leaving bridges or embankments unguarded and unprotected. It was never claimed in any of these that the frightening of a horse, or his becoming unmanageable, or the slipping and falling, was the proximate cause of the injury. Burns v. City of Yonkers, 83 Hun, 211, where we again find the word "primary" used, says: "Though in one sense the balking of the horse may be said to have been the primary cause of the accident, this would not prevent recovery by the plaintiff if she were free from fault." Fox v. Union Supreme Court, February, 1911. [Vol. 71. Turnpike Co., 59 App. Div. 363; Kiernan v. Mayor, 14 id. 156. In this latter case a young girl passing along the street became dizzy and faint and fell down an embankment not sufficiently guarded; but the fainting spell was not held to be the proximate cause of the injury. See also Wallace v. Town of New Albion, 121 App. Div. 66. After a review of the above authorities it cannot be successfully contended that the slipping of the plaintiff or the fall of the barrel upon him, and not the unguarded belt, was the proximate cause of the accident. So much has been written on the doctrine of "Proximate cause" that it may appear to some an increase of confusion to add thereto. But through all the cases there runs a rule, a guiding principle, which is much simpler than the oftquoted text books have made it. "The doctrine of proximate cause," it was said in Laidlaw v. Sage, 158 N. Y. 73, "is a fundamental rule of the law of damages, to the effect that damages are to be allowed in general only for the proximate consequences of the wrong. Another principle of proximate cause which seems to be well established is that an accident or injury cannot be attributed to a cause unless, without its operation, it would not have happened." * * * or Much has been written in attempting to define or explain proximate cause, many of the authorities copying at length from text books like Shearman and Redfield on the Law of Negligence, Wharton on Negligence and Thompson on Negligence. It has been termed "Proximate consequence "those consequences which follow in ordinary, unbroken sequence" and in many of the recent authorities "those circumstances which follow without the intervention of an independent cause." Laidlaw v. Sage, supra; Kremer v. New York Edison Co., 102 App. Div. 433; Conroy v. Acken, 110 id. 148; Trapp v. McClellan, 68 id. 365. It is defined in Sallie v. New York City R. Co., 110 App. Div. 665, as follows: "A proximate cause is an efficient cause. It is the one the connection between which and the effect is plain and intelligible." Again it is said to be Misc.] Supreme Court, February, 1911. one which is involved in the "idea of necessity." McGovern v. Degnon-McLean Contracting Co., 120 App. Div. 524. Many of these definitions are vague and difficult of application. Where a horse had been left upon the street unhitched, and a third person deliberately hit the horse and started him off to the injury of others, the owner of the animal has been held liable for the negligence of leaving the horse unhitched, as the proximate cause of the injury. This could hardly be considered "unbroken sequence" or "consequences which follow without the intervention of an independent cause." Illidge v. Goodwin, 5 Car. & P. 190: Lynch v. Nurdin, 1 Ad. & El. 29; McCahill v. Kipp, 2 E. D. Smith, 413; Thompson v. Plath, 44 App. Div. 291. If, instead of turning to the text books, we deduce from the adjudged cases the rule which has been actually applied, it appears to be this: Given the defendant's negligent act and the injury, the determining questions are (1) Would the accident have happened without the operation of the defendant's negligence? (2) Was the accident or the resultant injury reasonably to be foreseen or anticipated? If, without the operation of the defendant's negligence, the accident would not have happened and it was one reasonably to be foreseen and anticipated, the cause of action is established. The following cases would seem to support this conclusion and statement of the law. Leeds v. New York Telephone Co., 178 N. Y. 118; pertained to a derrick which struck a wire attached to a chimney, causing a brick to fall upon a passerby. In an action. against the telephone company for maintaining this wire on a defective chimney the court said: "The theory of defendant's negligence must rest upon the proposition that in the condition of the chimney, which inspection would have disclosed, the defendant should have foreseen possible interference with its wire, in the course of the building operations on the other side of the street, and the possible consequence to the chimney. An apparent vice in this proposition is the assumption that, had the chimney been different, or newer, or sounder, in its construction, it would have been able, successfully, to resist the strain caused by the blow of Supreme Court, February, 1911. * [Vol. 71. the great derrick boom against the wire. I doubt that we can indulge in such an assumption, in order to find a concurring act, or omission of duty. It seems to me that guilty, or responsible, concurrence in causing an injury involves the idea of two, or more, active agencies, co-operating to produce it; either of which must be an efficient cause, without the operation of which the accident would not have happened. * * * Was it (the accident) the result of the intervention of an independent cause which defendant was not bound to anticipate? * *The negligent conduct of the persons in using the derrick upon the building was an unusual occurrence and not such as should have been foreseen by the defendant." Again, Judge Vann in the dissenting opinion. says: "Concurring negligence is not an intervening cause within the meaning of the law, provided the result was a reasonable probability. If the defendant, acting with the average prudence of mankind, should have foreseen that interference with its wire was likely to occur through the building operations, of which it should have known, its negligence is not excused by the negligence of those engaged in erecting the building, because it was bound to the exercise of due care to prevent injury through the union of its own action with that of another. *** The negligent act of a stranger did not excuse the negligence of the defendant, provided some such act, not necessarily the one which did occur, but any similar act that might have occurred, was liable to happen in the judgment of a man of ordinary prudence." The Court of Appeals evidently based its conclusion in this case upon the ground that, even if the telephone company had not been negligent, the accident would, nevertheless, have happened. Hoffman v. King, 160 N. Y. 618, gave this statement of this rule: "The damage must be the proximate result of the negligent act. It must be such as the ordinary mind would reasonably expect as a probable result of the act." Cleveland v. New Jersey Steamboat Co., 68 N. Y. 306, was based upon facts showing that a passenger was pushed out of the gangway of a boat. The guiding rule |