## Facts

- A Colorado Cab taxi driver, Ali Yusuf, picked up two intoxicated passengers late at night; one passenger, Curt Glinton, attacked Yusuf from the back seat.
- Jose Garcia observed the assault and approached intending to aid Yusuf.
- Glinton attacked Garcia, then stole the cab and used it to strike Garcia multiple times, including running him over and dragging him, causing severe injuries.
- Garcia sued Colorado Cab for negligence, alleging the company failed to provide reasonably safe equipment (including a partition and interior cameras) to protect drivers from violent passengers.
- Garcia relied on the rescue doctrine, asserting Colorado Cab’s duty to Yusuf extended to him as a rescuer responding to the peril created by Colorado Cab’s negligence.

## Issues

1. In a rescue-doctrine case, how should proximate cause be analyzed when a rescuer is injured by an intervening third party’s criminal conduct?
2. Whether Garcia’s injuries were within the reasonably foreseeable scope of risk created by Colorado Cab’s alleged negligence and the nature of Garcia’s rescue attempt, such that proximate cause and superseding cause were for the jury rather than resolved as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals’ decision that had set aside the jury verdict on proximate cause.
- The Court held the evidence permitted a reasonable jury to find Garcia’s injuries were reasonably foreseeable based on Colorado Cab’s alleged negligence and the nature of the rescue attempt.
- The Court rejected treating Glinton’s criminal escalation (stealing and weaponizing the cab) as categorically unforeseeable as a matter of law.
- The Court reinstated the jury’s verdict, including the finding of negligence, 45% fault allocated to Colorado Cab, and $1,605,000 in damages.

## Legal Principles

- Under the rescue doctrine, a defendant whose negligence creates peril may be liable for injuries suffered by a third-party rescuer responding to that peril.
- In rescuer cases, proximate cause requires proof that the rescuer’s injuries were reasonably foreseeable in light of (1) the defendant’s alleged tortious conduct and (2) the nature of the rescue attempt.
- Foreseeability concerns the general type of harm and the scope of risk, not the precise manner in which the harm occurs.
- Intervening criminal conduct may constitute a superseding cause only when it is so extraordinary and unforeseeable that proximate cause can be decided as a matter of law.
- Proximate cause and superseding cause are generally jury questions; removal from the jury is appropriate only in rare cases.

## Conclusion

The Colorado Supreme Court held that, in a rescue-doctrine negligence case, a rescuer’s injuries inflicted during a violent incident could remain within the foreseeable scope of risk created by alleged taxi-safety failures, and that proximate cause and superseding cause were for the jury on this record; the Court therefore reinstated the jury’s verdict for the rescuer.


Garcia v. Colorado Cab Co., LLC, 538 P.3d 328 (Colo. 2023)