## Facts

- Seth Bloomberg (age 16) was a passenger in a car driven by David Camblin (age 16) on the Golden State Freeway.
- Late at night, the car developed engine trouble and was pulled onto the freeway shoulder near a call box.
- Around 1:30 a.m., Camblin used the call box; the call was answered by the California Highway Patrol and transferred to Interinsurance Exchange (Auto Club) for emergency roadside assistance.
- The boys returned to the disabled car to await assistance.
- Auto Club dispatched a tow truck but it failed to locate the car.
- Around 2:25 a.m., an intoxicated driver crashed into the disabled car, fatally injuring Seth.
- The parents alleged Auto Club knew or should have known minors left in a disabled vehicle on a freeway shoulder at night faced a serious risk and that Auto Club negligently failed to locate and protect them.

## Issues

1. Whether an emergency roadside assistance provider that receives a call and undertakes to respond owes a duty to use reasonable care to protect stranded minors from foreseeable harm.
2. Whether the intoxicated driver’s criminal conduct was a superseding, intervening cause that barred liability as a matter of law at the demurrer stage.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment of dismissal entered after the demurrer was sustained without leave to amend.
- The complaint sufficiently alleged a duty of care based on Auto Club’s undertaking to render emergency roadside assistance under dangerous conditions.
- The intoxicated driver’s conduct could not be deemed a superseding cause as a matter of law on demurrer because the general type of harm was foreseeable in the situation alleged.

## Legal Principles

- On review of a dismissal after a demurrer is sustained, courts accept as true all properly pleaded material facts and reasonable inferences and construe allegations liberally.
- A defendant that undertakes to render services for another’s protection may owe a duty to exercise reasonable care in performing that undertaking, particularly where lack of due care may increase the risk of harm.
- Foreseeability of harm is ordinarily a factual question; obvious dangers can support a duty of reasonable care at the pleading stage.
- An intervening criminal act does not automatically sever causation; whether it is a superseding cause typically presents a fact question when the harm falls within the general class of risks made foreseeable by the defendant’s alleged negligence.
- At the demurrer stage, courts generally should not resolve close duty and causation questions as matters of law where the pleaded facts support reasonable findings for the plaintiff.

## Conclusion

The court held that the parents stated a viable negligence claim because a roadside assistance provider that undertakes to respond to minors stranded on a freeway shoulder may owe reasonable care in carrying out the undertaking, and the later collision caused by an intoxicated driver was not, on the pleadings alone, a superseding cause that required dismissal.


Bloomberg v. Interinsurance Exch. of the Auto. Club of S. Cal., 162 Cal. App. 3d 571, 207 Cal. Rptr. 853 (Ct. App. 1984)