Prince v. B.F. Ascher Company2/17/2004
a third party. Oklahoma follows that rule." Henry, 877 F.2d at 1492, (citing Joyce v. M & M Gas Co., 1983 OK 110, , 672 P.2d 1172, 1173). "Normally the actor has much less reason to anticipate intentional misconduct than he has to anticipate negligence, particularly where the intentional conduct is a crime, since under ordinary circumstances it may reasonably be assumed that no one will violate the criminal law." Joyce, , 672 P.2d at 1174 (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts, §302B cmt. d (1965)). Oklahoma recognizes two types of special circumstances that create a duty to anticipate and prevent the illegal acts of a third party: "where the actor is under a special responsibility toward the one who suffers the harm or where the actor's own affirmative act has created or exposed the other to a recognizable high degree of risk of harm through such misconduct, which a reasonable man would take into account." Joyce, , 672 P.2d at 1174. Prince has failed to show that such special circumstances creating a duty to foresee criminal acts existed between Ballard and Appellees.
We also conclude the trial court was correct in granting Appellees' motions for summary judgment on the alternate ground that Ballard's criminal use of the propylhexedrine in the Benzedrex® inhaler as a stimulant was the supervening cause of his death. The law in Oklahoma is clear that before a defendant will be liable for a plaintiff's injuries, the plaintiff must prove that his injuries resulted directly and proximately from the defendant's negligence. Woodward v. Kinchen, 1968 OK 152, , 446 P.2d 375, 377. "The law does not charge a person with all possible consequences of his acts. Rather, the law ignores the remote cause and looks for the proximate cause of the injury." Henry, 877 F.2d at 1494. "The proximate cause of an event must be that which in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an independent cause, produces the event and without which the event would not have occurred." Gaines v. Providence Apartments, 1987 OK 129, , 750 P.2d 125, 126-27. "Where the negligence complained of only creates a condition which thereafter reacts with a subsequent, independent, unforeseeable, distinct agency and produces an injury, the original negligence is the remote rather than the proximate cause thereof." Id., , 750 P.2d at 127.
Generally, the question of proximate cause is one for the jury. Thompson v. Presbyterian Hosp., Inc.. 1982 OK 87, , 652 P.2d 260, 263. The question becomes an issue of law when there is no evidence from which a jury could reasonably find the required proximate, causal nexus between the careless act and the resulting injuries. Smith v. Davis, 1967 OK 161, , 430 P.2d 799, 800. In that circumstance, it is for the court to determine as a matter of law whether the evidence is sufficient to show intervening factors broke the causal nexus between the original actor's careless behavior and the resulting injury. Thompson, , 652 P.2d at 264. "An intervening factor sufficient to break the causal nexus is a supervening cause." Henry, 877 F.2d at 1495. When an intervening cause is found to be supervening, "the original negligence may be said to undergo a legal metamorphosis into a remote cause or 'mere condition.'" Thompson, , 652 P.2d at 264.
In Oklahoma, the test to determine whether a cause is supervening is whether it is: "(1) independent of the original act; (2) adequate of itself to bring about the result; and (3) one whose occurrence was not reasonably foreseeable." Brigance, , 725 P.2d at 305; Strong v. Allen, 1989 OK 17, , 768 P.2d 369, 371; Thompson v Presbyterian Hosp., Inc., 1982 OK 87, , 652 P.2d 260, 264. "When the intervening act is intentionally tortious or criminal, it
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