Lawyers spend years studying the mechanics of what happened and how that interpolates into the proximate cause of what caused the injury and damages. Ask any lawyer about young Ms. Palsgraf and the weight machine that fell on her on the railroad boardwalk and broke her leg. The point is that proximate cause is the dominate cause of the injury and damage not the closest in time or line of factors but the greatest cause of the injury: 'the telephone pole fell on her and broke her neck; the telephone pole fell because the big truck hit it; the big truck hit the telephone pole because it swerved to keep from hitting the boy on the bike who had suddenly driven into the street; the boy on the bike swerved into the street because the drunk driver drove up onto the curb' ~ you get the idea.
Proximate Cause is the reason I settled a case where the client's eye was shot out for $670,000 one year and a couple of years later settled another eye shot out case for $150,000.
It is the reason that I and many other genuine personal injury lawyers have settled cases with GM, FORD, Bandag, Ryder Truck Leasing, and others arising out of road collision cases that did not include one fo their employees or vehicles.
