The document summarizes the majority and dissenting opinions in the 1928 Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. case. The majority opinion, written by Chief Judge Cardozo, found that the railroad was not negligent because the plaintiff's injuries were not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the railroad's actions. Judge Andrews' dissenting opinion argued that the railroad's actions set in motion a chain of events that ultimately caused the plaintiff's injuries, making the railroad responsible. The opinions reflected differing views on the scope of a defendant's duty of care and whether the analysis should consider foreseeability or proximate cause.

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Illya Vasquez
Palsgraf Ruling and Dissenting Opinion Analysis
In the Helen Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Company case (1928), New York Court of
Appeals Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo reversed the trial court judgment and Appellate
Division’s upholding of that judgment that favored the plaintiff. His majority opinion reasoned
that Palsgraf’s injuries were the result of an accident that should be traced by its legal
relationship to the Long Island Railroad Company and not the action that led to it. The
responsibility that Long Island owed its employees and passengers was a duty of care, including
preventing a reasonably foreseeable consequence of any possible negligence.
The plaintiff was standing “many feet away” (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y.
339) from where the originating incident took place. When the chain of events began that
resulted in Palsgraf’s injuries, there was no way of foreseeing potential for such an incident
occurring and therefore no way to put measures in place to prevent it. There was no way of
knowing that a man boarding the moving train was carrying a package of fireworks, and
although he may have been put in harm’s way by being allowed to board a moving train with the
aid of two Long Island Railroad Company employees, his dropping of his unmarked package
went from an isolated personal wrong to an isolated property wrong.
The Long Island Railroad Company employees perceived no further danger in what was
a minor incident, in line with Judge Cardozo’s declaration that “the orbit of the danger as
disclosed to the eye of reasonable vigilance would be the orbit of the duty” (Palsgraf v. Long
Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339). Long Island’s reasonable duty rested in getting the man onboard
the train and thus, “the wrongdoer as to them is the man who carries the bomb, not the one who
explodes it without suspicion of the danger” (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339).
The Long Island Railroad Company breached no duty to the plaintiff because she was “many
feet away” when such an unforeseeable incident occurred, and the chain of events which led to
her injuries were not a direct cause of negligence on the part of the railroad company because she
was not in its orbit of reasonable duty.
In his conclusion, Judge Cardozo writes, “Negligence, like risk, is thus a term of relation”
(Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339). He cites a case that set a precedent for his

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reasoning, which states that “the risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed,
and risk imports relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension”
(Seavey, Negligence, Subjective or Objective, 41 H.L. Rv. 6; Boronkay v. Robinson &
Carpenter, 247 N.Y. 365).
The harm was not willful, and there was no apparent potential for danger toward the
plaintiff when the Long Island employees helped the man with the unmarked package board the
train. Consequently, Judge Cardozo reversed the lower court’s ruling favoring her claim of
negligence on the part of the Long Island Railroad Company, stating in his ruling, “The law of
causation, remote or proximate, is thus foreign to the case before us” (Palsgraf v. Long Island
Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339).
In his dissenting opinion, Judge William Andrews explains an entirely different line of
reasoning, saying, “we deal in terms of proximate cause, not of negligence” (Palsgraf v. Long
Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339). Judge Andrews focused more on the action rather than on the
relationship between the plaintiff and the railroad company, explaining, “it is the act itself, not
the intent of the actor, that is important” (Hover v. Barkhoof, 44 N.Y. 113; Mertz v. Connecticut
Co., 217 N.Y. 475). He argues that since the actions of Long Island’s employees caused the
incident that knocked down the scales which injured the plaintiff, the proximate cause of her
injuries was the negligence of the Long Island Railroad Company’s employees. That the contents
of the man’s package were not known to be explosive is irrelevant to the plaintiff’s injuries since
the railroad employees’ negligent actions—pushing and pulling the man onto a moving train—
caused the explosion that ultimately resulted in the plaintiff’s injuries.
Judge Andrews says that the employees committed a hazardous, unreasonable act, and
“where there is the unreasonable act, and some right that may be affected there is negligence
whether damage does or does not result” (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339). He
further states that the railroad company’s duty of care is boundless, especially in the vicinity of
its operation, writing, “The act itself is wrongful. It is a wrong not only to those who happen to
be within the radius of danger but to all who might have been there—a wrong to the public at
large” (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339).
The contrasting opinions are influenced by different schools of thought that place higher
values on either private rights or the rights of the public at large. In his symposium article written
for The Harvard Law Review titled “Palsgraf, Punitive Damages, and Preemption,” Benjamin C.

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Zipursky explains that “The [Judge Cardozo] opinion infers … that a plaintiff may not sue in tort
for the wrong to another, which itself flows from the idea that a tort claim is fundamentally a
private right of action to redress a wrong to oneself” (1,758). In Judge Cardozo’s line of
reasoning, the complex variables involved that led to the explosion were unforeseeable and thus
unpreventable by the Long Island Railroad Company regardless of the wrong committed against
the man with the package by pushing and pulling him.
When the primary incident triggered the secondary anomalous incident which affected
the plaintiff, the duty of responsibility for her safety was separated by a degree wherein the Long
Island Railroad Company cannot be held liable for negligence because such a danger was
unknown to its employees. She was not in the orbit of the man being helped onto the train and
there was no way to predict that the contents of his package had the potential to cause injury to
her while she was standing “many feet away.”
Judge Andrews on the other hand contends that “it does not matter that they [type of
accidents] are unusual, unexpected, unforeseen and unforeseeable. But there is one limitation.
The damages must be so connected with the negligence that the latter may be said to be the
proximate cause of the former” (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339). This view of
the incidents as causational rather than legally isolated places a higher value on overall public
safety by holding companies to a higher standard of duty of care.
Judge Andrews makes this point clear when he states, “Due care is a duty imposed on
each one of us to protect society from unnecessary danger, not protect A, B, or C alone”
(Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y. 339). He went on, “Everyone owes to the world at
large the duty of refraining from those acts that may unreasonably threaten the safety of others,”
subsequently, “her action is original and primary” (Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 248 N.Y.
339).
Although both schools of reasoning are sensible and justifiable, Judge Cardozo’s opinion
was shared by the majority of New York Court of Appeals Judges. Zipursky further explains
Judge Cardozo’s ruling, saying, “The central point of Chief Judge Cardozo’s Palsgraf opinion is
that a defendant’s failure to use due care must have been a breach of the duty of due care owed to
the plaintiff; the breach and duty elements of the negligence claim must fit together in the right
way” (1,758). To qualify as any form of causation and liable negligence, the incident that caused
the plaintiff’s injuries would have had to occur directly in the orbit of care owed to her. As the

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facts have proved, she was not in the orbit of care of the Long Island Railroad Company when
the explosion caused the scale to fall on her while two of their employees were helping the man
board the train. The explosion was an unforeseen isolated incident involving Long Island
employees, and the scale falling was another isolated incident not involving Long Island
employees.
Works Cited
New York Court of Appeals. Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. 248 N.Y. 339 (1928)
Zipursky, Benjamin C. “Palsgraf, Punitive Damages, and Preemption.” Harvard Law Review.
Vol. 125, No. 7, 18 May 2012, pp. 1757–1797.