Barry v. Quality Steel Products, Inc.
Connecticut Supreme Court
820 A.2d 258 (2003)
Four carpenters (plaintiffs), including the Barrys and the Cohades, were injured when a roof platform collapsed; the platform used brackets designed by Quality Steel Products and sold by Ring's End (defendants), some of which had been installed by another worker using undersized nails. The trial court instructed the jury on the doctrine of superseding cause, and the jury found Quality Steel's brackets defective and a proximate cause of the accident but still ruled for the defendants, applying that doctrine; the carpenters appealed the instruction.
Whether, when a jury must decide which of several possible causes contributed to a plaintiff's injury, the jury should decide whether each actor's conduct was a proximate cause of that injury.