The Connors Company owned a barge. It was being towed by
a tugboat owned by Carroll Towing (and operated by Grace Line). Carroll
Towing negligently caused the barge to break free, where it drifted around
about, hit another boat, and then sank.
They tied a whole bunch of barges together, and that
stressed the line too much, and all the ships broke free.
The Trial Court found Grace Line and Carroll Towing liable
for negligence in the incident.
However, Carroll towing argued that Connors was partially
responsible.
The Connors barge did not have anyone on board during the
tow. If there was someone on board, they could have mitigated the damage
and prevented the barge from sinking.
The Appellate Court agreed and reduced the damages.
The Appellate Court found that it was reasonably
foreseeable that the barge would break free. Therefore, Connors needed
to take reasonable care to mitigate potential damages.
The Appellate Court suggests an algebraic formula for
determining care. They say that if (Probability of injury) x (Potential
liability) > (Costs of the extra burden), then you have a duty to take
on that extra burden.
This reasoning is sometimes known as the risk-utility
formula.
With this formula, you really have to integrate over the
various possibly injuries and the probabilities of those results. For
example, what if there is a 10% chance of killing 1 person and a 1%
chance of killing 10 people. The math gets complicated.
This is also known as the Hand Formula, since the
judge who gave this opinion was the famous Learned Hand.
Does this seem a very cold and impersonal way to account
for people's lives?
The risk-utility formula only applies to
situations where the defendant has time to weigh options and make a
conscious choice. It wouldn't apply to situations like car accidents
where someone has to make a quick decision.
The risk-utility formula is different than most
jury instructions. Juries are typically instructed to decide if the
defendants acted reasonably under the circumstances and anticipated
foreseeable events. They aren't given formulas.
The risk-utility formula is most often used by
appellate courts to determine if the damages a jury gave are reasonable,
and by trial judges to determine if there should be a directed verdict.
The defendant's counsel would never explicitly bring up
the risk-utility formula as a defense, since it tends to make the
defendant look cold and not empathetic.
Btw, this is not a common law case, it's an admiralty
law case, since it involves ships.
