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Tise v. Yates Construction Co.2/10/1997
ility on the part of the original actor of the subsequent intervening act and resultant injury.'" [ Butner v. Spease, 217 N.C. 82, 89, 6 S.E.2d 808, 812 (1939).]
Hairston, 310 N.C. at 237, 311 S.E.2d at 567 (quoting Riddle v. Artis, 243 N.C. 668, 671, 91 S.E.2d 894, 896-97 (1956)).
In the instant case, the police officers responding to the initial call to the construction site investigated and acted to prevent the criminal acts of unknown third parties. While the officers were called to the site to investigate possible tampering with the grader equipment, Tise's injuries caused by the criminal acts of third parties in their unauthorized operation of the grader could not have been foreseeable from the officers' acts of attempting to disable the grader. The criminal acts in this case were an intervening cause that relieved the City of any actionable negligence by cutting off the proximate cause flowing from the acts of the agents of the City in attempting to disable the grader. This superseding cause was a new cause, which intervened between the original negligent act of the City and the injury ultimately suffered by Tise. The third party criminal acts in this case broke the chain of causation set in motion by the police officers. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in granting the City's motion to dismiss.
For the foregoing reasons, different from those stated by the Court of Appeals, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the trial court's order granting the City's motion to dismiss Yates' allegations of the City's actionable negligence, and we remand this case to the Court of Appeals for further remand to the Superior Court, Forsyth County, for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
MODIFIED AND AFFIRMED.
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