The Calcutta Law Journal Short Notes of Cases Articles and other Matters June 1 1908

Beven seeing in the rule of Vicars v. Wilcocks (I) an apparent kinship to proximity of causation in that it dealt with the liability for the effect of acts as depending on the legal character of an essential link in the chain of actual causation treated it not as a separate principle of law stopping liability at a point short of the limits of actual proximity but as an auxiliary rule enforcing [...] Similarly the so-called Doctrine of the Last Clear Chance whereby a defendant whose negligent act was the final decisive cause of the accident was liable to the plaintiff even though the latter had at an earlier stage been guilty of some default placing him within the reach of the effects of the defendant's act is also a necessary result of that rule applied to such facts and not as it appears [...] E. 59n The modification in Vicars v. Wilcocks (1) added to asconsideration of the actual sequence of events a scrutiny of the legality or illegality of the various steps therein but even so modified the rule deals with the various links in the chain of causation as between a harm as a physical consequence and the act which is alleged to cause it as an act and is applied impartially to ascertain [...] He whose negligence is the final decisive cause of the harm must answer for it ; while in regard to the right to indemnity the actor the creator is liable over to him whose neglect of his positive duty is the final efficent cause who had the last clear chance if he had done what he was legally bound to do to avert the harm. [...] If the plaintiff has no legal right to place himself in juxtaposition with the defendant his premises or business if his association therewith Is entirely dependent upon the latter's consent the defendant owes him no duty in regard to the condition of his premises or plant or the system which he chooses to adopt in the conduct of his business save that the actual shall conform to the apparent