## Facts

- Dorothy Gross owned a vacant Philadelphia building where combustible trash and debris accumulated.
- A fire began in Gross’s building due to the accumulated combustibles and spread across a narrow street, damaging nearby property owned by Joseph A. Tartaglia and occupied by JATCO, Inc.
- After the fire was extinguished, the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections retained Thorne Equipment Company to demolish a fire-damaged six-story elevator shaft on Tartaglia’s property.
- During demolition, part of the elevator shaft fell and damaged buildings and vehicles owned by American Truck Lines, Inc. and American Truck Leasing, Inc.
- American sued Thorne, the City, Tartaglia, JATCO, and Gross, alleging negligence and seeking recovery for the demolition-related damage.
- The trial court dismissed the negligence claim against Gross on demurrer, concluding her alleged conduct was not a substantial factor in causing American’s loss; claims against other defendants remained pending.

## Issues

1. Whether Gross’s alleged negligence in allowing combustible trash to accumulate and cause a fire was a substantial factor in causing American’s later property damage during demolition.
2. Whether Thorne’s demolition activity constituted an intervening act that severed legal causation between Gross’s alleged negligence and American’s harm.

## Decision

- The Superior Court affirmed the order sustaining Gross’s demurrer and dismissing American’s claim against her.
- The court held Gross’s alleged negligence was too factually and chronologically remote from American’s damage to satisfy the substantial-factor requirement.
- The court treated the demolition work and resulting collapse as an intervening act that broke the causal chain as to Gross.

## Legal Principles

- In negligence, a plaintiff must plead and prove that the defendant’s conduct was a substantial factor in bringing about the harm.
- Even if earlier negligence contributes to a sequence of events, liability may be denied when the connection to the plaintiff’s injury is too remote.
- An independent, later act that directly causes the plaintiff’s injury may constitute an intervening cause that severs legal causation as to an earlier actor.
- Conduct that merely creates a background condition, rather than operating as an active causal force at the time of injury, may be insufficient to establish proximate cause.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that, although Gross’s alleged trash-related negligence may have led to the initial fire, American’s injury resulted from the later demolition collapse, an intervening cause rendering Gross’s conduct legally too remote and not a substantial factor in the harm.


American Truck Leasing, Inc. v. Thorne Equip. Co., 583 A.2d 1242 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1991)