## Facts

- A Middlebury, Connecticut resident called police on January 7, 2002, reporting a dog roaming on her property during snow and sleet.
- Police officers Edward C. Demers, Jr. and Alton L. Cronin responded and located a dog later identified as owned by Steven C. Rosa.
- The officers restrained the dog and placed it in the rear of Cronin’s cruiser.
- After the dog was secured, Demers walked alongside the cruiser and slipped on ice on the resident’s driveway, sustaining injuries.
- Demers alleged Rosa negligently allowed the dog to roam, requiring the police response and leading to Demers’s fall.

## Issues

1. Whether Rosa’s negligence in allowing his dog to roam proximately caused Demers’s injuries when Demers slipped on ice after the dog had been secured.

## Decision

- The Connecticut Appellate Court reversed the judgment for Demers and directed judgment for Rosa.
- The court held Demers failed to prove proximate cause because the injury was not within the foreseeable scope of risk created by allowing the dog to roam.
- The court treated the icy driveway as the direct cause of the fall; the roaming dog was, at most, a “but-for” reason Demers was present.
- The court did not reach Rosa’s evidentiary (hearsay) challenge because the proximate-cause ruling was dispositive.

## Legal Principles

- Proximate cause requires more than factual causation; the defendant’s conduct must be a substantial factor in producing harm that falls within the foreseeable scope of the risk created by the negligence.
- Foreseeability is assessed with reference to the specific type and mechanism of harm, not general risks associated with the defendant’s conduct.
- Liability does not extend to consequences that are remote or highly extraordinary relative to the risks that made the conduct negligent.
- Where the immediate injury-producing hazard is an independent condition (here, ice) and the risk created by the defendant’s conduct has dissipated (the dog was secured), proximate cause may be lacking even if the defendant’s conduct set events in motion.

## Conclusion

The appellate court concluded that allowing a dog to roam at large did not legally cause a police officer’s slip on ice that occurred after the dog had been restrained and secured, because the injury fell outside the class of foreseeable risks that made the conduct negligent.


Demers v. Rosa, 102 Conn. App. 497, 925 A.2d 1165 (Conn. App. Ct. 2007)