Odger's English Common Law

416 PRIVATE RIGHTS OF ACTION.
to his employer that the barman had left the premises which he occupied
without paying his rent, the loss of employment was held to be too remote
damage ; for it was not the natural and necessary consequence of the
defendant's words. 1 Again, where the defendant's servant illegally washed
a van in a public street, and owing to a severe frost the waste water froze,
and in consequence the plaintiff's horse slipped and broke its leg, it was
held that the damage sustained was too remote a consequence of the illegal
act to support an action. 2
But where the immediate cause of the damage which the
plaintiff has sustained is some act on the part of an innocent
third person, the defendant will still be liable for the damage
if he caused that third person so to act.
This proposition is well illustrated by the case of Scott v. Shepherd}
There it was held that trespass would lie against the individual who first
set a squib in motion, which, after being thrown about in self-defence (and
therefore lawfully) by various persons, at last put out the plaintiff's eye.
The parties intervening between the plaintiff and the defendant, who acted
for their own safety, could not be regarded as free agents ; and consequently
there was a " chain of effects," which connected the wrongdoer and the
injured party and rendered the former responsible for the damage done
io the latter by this tortious act.
Again, where the defendant pursued a negro boy with a view to assaulting
him, and drove him into the plaintiff's shop, where damage was done by
the negro to a cask of wine, it was contended that the defendant was not
liable, inasmuch as the damage was occasioned, not directly by him, but
by the negro boy, who, it was said, was a free agent ; the Court, however,
took a different view of the matter upon the old general rule that when
"one does an illegal or mischievous act, which is likely to prove injurious
to others, and when he does a legal act in such a careless and improper
manner that injury to third persons may probably ensue, he is answerable
in some form of action for all the consequences which may direotly and
naturally result from his conduct." The fact that the defendant had no
intention of damaging the cask of wine was regarded as immaterial. The
defendant was doing an unlawful act, and was legally liable for all direct
•consequences of that act, although he had not contemplated them. 4
So where the defendant had unlawfully placed a chevaux de frise
across a public highway, and a third party had without his knowledge or
consent removed it on to the footpath, it was held that the defendant was
liable for injury resulting to a person lawfully using the footpath, notwith-
standing the fact that the intervention of the third party was the immediate
•cause of the accident. 6
1 Speake v. Hughes, [1904] 1 K. B. 138.
2 Sharp v. Powell (1872), L. R. 7 C. P. 253.
» (1773). 2 W. Bla. 892 ; 1 Smith, L. C, 12th- ed., 513
„\Z? nHn i u Z gh !' rra (1847 4 Deni0
Tr ? )' (U S - -) R *64 -
;
(1822), 19 Johns. (U. S.) R. 381.
and saG Guillev. Swan
Clark v. Chambers (1878), 3 Q. B. D. 327 : and see Lawrence v. Jenkins (1873)
L. R. 8 Q. B. 271 ; Parry v. Smith (1879), 4 0. P. D. 325.