## Facts

- A taxicab operated by New York Transportation Company struck John McCahill on Broadway in New York City at night.
- The evidence permitted findings that the cab was negligent and that McCahill was free from contributory negligence.
- McCahill was thrown about twenty feet and suffered a broken thigh and an injured knee; he became unconscious or irrational and was taken to a hospital.
- Two days later, McCahill died from delirium tremens.
- McCahill had a preexisting alcoholic condition; medical testimony indicated the injuries “precipitated” and “hurried up” the delirium tremens, though he “might have had it anyway.”
- It was undisputed that the injuries could not have led to delirium tremens absent the preexisting alcoholic condition.
- A jury returned a verdict for the administratrix in a wrongful-death action; the judgment was affirmed on appeal.

## Issues

1. Whether a defendant’s negligence is the proximate cause of death when the defendant’s injuries precipitate and hasten a fatal condition arising from the decedent’s preexisting alcoholism.
2. Whether the possibility that the decedent might have suffered delirium tremens and died later, even without the accident, defeats liability as a matter of law.

## Decision

- The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment for the plaintiff.
- The court held that the defendant’s negligent act was the proximate cause of death because it directly set in motion a sequence of events culminating in death at the time it occurred.
- The court rejected the argument that liability is avoided because the death depended on the decedent’s abnormal susceptibility or because the same condition might have become fatal later without the accident.
- The court concluded that the evidence, including medical testimony, permitted the jury to find causation and warranted leaving the issue to the jury.

## Legal Principles

- A tortfeasor takes the victim as found; liability is not reduced or avoided because the victim’s preexisting condition makes the consequences more severe than they would be for a healthy person.
- Proximate cause may be established where negligence precipitates, accelerates, or hastens a preexisting condition into a fatal outcome, even if the condition might eventually have produced death independently.
- When competent evidence supports that the injury materially contributed to the timing and occurrence of death, causation is a fact question for the jury rather than a question of law for the court.

## Conclusion

The court upheld wrongful-death liability where a negligent collision caused injuries that hastened delirium tremens and death in an alcoholic decedent, holding that abnormal susceptibility and the possibility of eventual death from the preexisting condition did not sever proximate cause.


McCahill v. N.Y. Transp. Co., 201 N.Y. 221, 94 N.E. 616 (1911)