McCane-Sondock Protection Systems, Inc. v. Emmittee
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas
540 S.W.2d 764 (1976)
Liquor-store owner James Emmittee (plaintiff) hired McCane-Sondock Protection Systems (defendant) to install an alarm system, but its employees never tested it and had failed to connect the wires from the hold-up button to the control panel. When a masked robber later held up the store at gunpoint, Emmittee and an employee pressed the alarm buttons, but police were never notified; testimony showed police could have arrived within minutes had the alarm worked, while the robber remained in the store for nearly ten minutes. A jury found Emmittee's loss was proximately caused by McCane-Sondock's faulty installation and awarded him $6,839, and McCane-Sondock appealed, blaming the robber's own criminal act for the loss instead.
Whether a reasonably foreseeable intervening act breaks the chain of causation between a defendant's negligence and the plaintiff's loss or injury.