## Facts

- A driver struck and critically injured a small child with her automobile in Pecos, Texas.
- Police officer Harold Snellenberger and another officer responded in separate patrol cars after being notified of the accident.
- At the scene, the other officer administered CPR to the child.
- Officer Snellenberger managed crowd control, moving back onlookers, including the child’s distressed mother.
- While performing those duties, Officer Snellenberger collapsed and later died of a heart attack.
- His widow and children sued the driver asserting wrongful-death and survival claims, relying on the rescue doctrine.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for the driver, and the court of appeals affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether, assuming the rescue doctrine could apply, the driver’s negligence proximately caused the officer’s death because the officer’s fatal heart attack was a foreseeable result of the accident.
2. Whether foreseeability could be resolved as a matter of law on summary judgment in this rescue-context tort claim.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the driver.
- The court affirmed on a different ground than the court of appeals, declining to decide whether the rescue doctrine was properly implicated.
- The court held, as a matter of law, that the officer’s heart attack was not a foreseeable result of the driver’s negligence.
- Because foreseeability is an essential element of proximate cause, the plaintiffs could not establish liability.

## Legal Principles

- Proximate cause in negligence requires foreseeability; negligence alone is insufficient for liability.
- The rescue doctrine does not eliminate the requirement that the rescuer’s injury be a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s negligence.
- A court may determine lack of foreseeability as a matter of law, making summary judgment proper when no reasonable factfinder could find proximate cause.
- Highly attenuated harms at an accident scene may be deemed remote rather than natural and probable consequences of the initial negligent act.

## Conclusion

The court held that the rescue doctrine does not relax Texas proximate-cause requirements and that a police officer’s fatal heart attack while controlling a crowd at an accident scene was not foreseeable as a matter of law, so the defendant’s negligent driving could not be treated as the proximate cause of the officer’s death.


Snellenberger v. Rodriguez, 760 S.W.2d 237 (Tex. 1988)