act of a third person

Whether the animal escaped through the owner's negligence or through the wrongful act of a third person is immaterial.

The court held that a person has "no legal duty to protect another from the criminal acts of a third person or control the conduct of another."

Judge Goettel said the grocery store where she bought the pain reliever and Johnson & Johnson, the drug's maker, could not be sued because they did not have a duty to protect the buyer from the illegal act of a third person.

The texts dealing with the case where the intervening event was a wrongful act of a third person present some difficulty, but their doctrine seems to be as follows: Where a slave, wounded by A and then by B, died, if each act would certainly have killed, A had wounded, B had killed.

The same rule applies when the issue is whether the intervening act of a third person was foreseeable and therefore did not constitute a superseding cause: in such circumstances "The foreseeability of the risk generally frames a question for the trier of fact" Restatement the fact that the risk eventuates does not relieve him of responsibility.