## Facts

- Sue Allbritton, a trainee employee at a chemical facility, was present when a pump manufactured by Union Pump caught fire and ignited the surrounding area.
- Allbritton and her supervisor assisted in firefighting efforts; the fire was extinguished about two hours later.
- After the fire, the supervisor was instructed to address a perceived issue involving a nitrogen purge valve; Allbritton asked to accompany him and was allowed.
- To reach the valve area, the supervisor chose a shorter but less safe route by crossing an aboveground pipe rack about two and one-half feet high; Allbritton followed.
- At the valve location, they learned it was not necessary to block off the valve.
- On the return trip, the supervisor again crossed the pipe rack rather than taking a safer route; Allbritton followed and was injured when she hopped or slipped off the rack.
- Evidence indicated the pipe rack was wet from firefighting efforts and that they were still wearing firefighting gear, including hip boots.
- Allbritton claimed the pump defect and fire caused her injury because, absent the fire, she would not have been in the area or traversed the wet pipe rack.

## Issues

1. Whether the pump fire was, as a matter of law, too remote to constitute legal causation of Allbritton’s slip-and-fall injuries.
2. Whether Allbritton raised a fact issue on proximate cause (negligence) or producing cause (strict products liability) sufficient to defeat summary judgment.

## Decision

- The Texas Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and rendered judgment that Allbritton take nothing.
- The court held there was no legal causation as a matter of law between the pump fire and Allbritton’s injury.
- The court concluded the fire was a prior condition and not a substantial factor or operative cause of the fall once the emergency had ended and later events intervened.

## Legal Principles

- Proximate cause requires (1) cause in fact (a substantial factor in bringing about the harm) and (2) foreseeability.
- Producing cause in strict liability requires cause in fact but does not require foreseeability.
- “But for” causation alone does not establish legal causation; an earlier act that merely creates the circumstances for a later injury may be treated as a condition rather than a legal cause.
- When the immediate danger from an earlier event has ceased and an injury results from later independent decisions (including choosing an unsafe route over a safer alternative), the earlier event may be too remote to support liability as a matter of law.
- Courts may decide remoteness and the absence of legal causation on summary judgment when the causal link is legally insufficient even if the earlier event is a historical antecedent.

## Conclusion

The court held that the extinguished pump fire did not legally cause Allbritton’s later fall because the fire was no longer an operative, substantial factor and the injury resulted from intervening circumstances and voluntary route choices, making the causal connection too remote under both proximate-cause and producing-cause standards.


Union Pump Co. v. Allbritton, 898 S.W.2d 773 (Tex. 1995)