Cardozo, J.

The action is for personal injuries.

The defendant operates an electric railway between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. There is a point on its line where an overhead crossing carries its tracks above those of the New York Central and the Erie. A gradual incline upwards over a trestle raises the tracks to a height of twenty-five feet. A turn is then made to the left at an angle of from sixty-four to eighty-four degrees. After making this turn, the line passes over a bridge, *179which is about one hundred and fifty-eight feet long from one abutment to the other. Then comes a turn to the right at about the same angle down the same kind of an incline to grade. Above the trestles, the tracks are laid on ties, unguarded at the ends. There is thus an overhang of the cars, which is accentuated at curves. On the bridge, a narrow footpath runs between the tracks, and beyond the line of overhang there are tie rods and a protecting rail.

Plaintiff and his cousin Herbert boarded a car at a station near the bottom of one of the trestles. Other passengers, entering at the same time, filled the platform, and blocked admission to the aisle. The platform was provided with doors, but the conductor did not close them. Moving at from six to eight miles an hour, the car, without slackening, turned the curve. There was a violent lurch, and Herbert Wagner was thrown out, near the point where the trestle changes to a. bridge. The cry was raised, “Man overboard.” The car went on across the bridge, and stopped near the foot of the incline. Night and darkness had come on. Plaintiff walked along the trestle, a distance of four hundred and forty-five feet, until he arrived at the bridge, where he thought to find his cousin’s body. He says that he was asked to go there by the conductor. He says, too, that the conductor followed with a lantern. Both these statements the conductor denies. Several other persons, instead of ascending the trestle, went beneath it, and discovered under the bridge the body they were seeking. As they stood there, the plaintiff’s body struck the ground beside them. Reaching the bridge, he had found upon a beam his cousin’s hat, but nothing else. About him, there was darkness. He missed his footing, and fell.

The trial judge held that negligence toward Herbert Wagner would not charge the defendant with liability for injuries suffered by the plaintiff unless two other facts were found: First, that the plaintiff had been *180invited by the conductor to go upon the bridge; and second, that the conductor had followed with a light. Thus limited, the jury found in favor of the defendant. Whether the limitation may be upheld, is the question to be answered.

Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief. The law does not ignore these reactions of the mind in tracing conduct to its consequences. It recognizes them as normal. It places their effects within the- range of the natural and probable. The wrong that imperils life is a wrong to the imperilled victim; it is a wrong also to his rescuer. The state that leaves an opening in a bridge is hable to the child that falls into the stream, but hable also to the parent who plunges to its aid (Gibney v. State of N. Y., 137 N. Y. 1). The railroad company whose train approaches without signal is a wrongdoer toward the traveler surprised between the rails, but a wrongdoer also to the bystander who drags him from the path (Eckert v. L. I. R. R. Co., 43 N. Y. 502. Cf. Matter of Waters v. Taylor Co., 218 N. Y. 248). The rule is the same in other jurisdictions (Dixon v. N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. Co., 207 Mass. 126, 130, and Bond v. B. & O. R. R. Co., 82 W. Va. 557, with cases there cited. Cf. 1 Beven on Negligence, 157, 158). The risk of rescue, if only it be not wanton, is born of the occasion. The emergency begets the man. The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had (Ehrgott v. Mayor, etc., of N. Y., 96 N. Y. 264, 280, 281).

The defendant says that we must stop, in following the chain of causes, when action ceases to be “instinctive.” By this, is meant, it seems, that rescue is at the peril of the rescuer, unless spontaneous and immediate. If there has been time to deliberate, if impulse has given way to judgment, one cause, it is said, has spent its force, and another has intervened. In this case, the plaintiff walked more than four hundred feet in going to Herbert’s aid. *181He had time to reflect and weigh; impulse had been followed by choice; and choice, in the defendant’s view, intercepts and breaks the sequence. We find no warrant for thus shortening the chain of jural causes. We may assume, though we are not required to decide, that peril and rescue must be in substance one transaction; that the sight of the one must have aroused the impulse to the other; in short, that there must be unbroken continuity between the commission of the wrong and the effort to avert its consequences. If all this be assumed, the defendant is not aided. Continuity in such circumstances is not broken by the exercise of volition (Twomley v. C. P., N. & E. R. R. R. Co., 69 N. Y. 158; Donnelly v. Piercy Contracting Co., 222 N. Y. 210; Bird v. St. Paul F. & M. Ins. Co., 224 N. Y. 47, 54). So sweeping an exception, if recognized, would leave little of the rule. “The human mind,” as we have said (People v. Majone, 91 N. Y. 211, 212), “acts with celerity which it is sometimes impossible to measure.” The law does not discriminate between the rescuer oblivious of peril and the one who counts the cost. It is enough that the act, whether impulsive or deliberate, is the child of the occasion.

The defendant finds another obstacle, however, in the futility of the plaintiff’s sacrifice. He should have gone, it is said, below the trestle with the others; he should have known, in view of the overhang of the cars, that the body would not be found above; his conduct was not responsive to the call of the emergency; it was a wanton exposure to a danger that was useless (Miller v. Union Ry. Co. of N. Y. City, 191 N. Y. 77, 80). We think the quality of his acts in the situation that confronted him was to be determined by the jury. Certainly he believed that good would come of his search upon the bridge. He was not going there to view the landscape. The law cannot say of his belief that a reasonable man would have been unable to share it. He could not know *182the precise point at which his cousin had fallen from the car. If the fall was from the bridge, there was no reason why the body, caught by some projection, might not be hanging on high, athwart the tie rods or the beams. Certainly no such reason was then apparent to the plaintiff, or so a jury might have found. Indeed, his judgment was confirmed by the finding of the hat. There was little time for delay, if the facts were as he states them. Another car was due, and the body, if not removed, might be ground beneath the wheels. The plaintiff had to choose at once, in agitation and with imperfect knowledge. He had seen his kinsman and companion thrown out into the darkness. Rescue could not charge the company with liability if rescue was condemned by reason. “Errors of judgment,” however, would not count against him, if they resulted “from the excitement and confusion of the moment” (Corbin v. Philadelphia, 195 Penn. St. 461, 472). The reason that was exacted of him was not the reason of the morrow. It was reason fitted and proportioned to the time and the event.

Whether Herbert Wagner’s fall was due to the defendant’s negligence, and whether plaintiff in going to the rescue, as he did, was foolhardy or reasonable in the light of the emergency confronting him, were questions for the jury.

The judgment of the Appellate Division and that of the Trial Term should be reversed, and a new trial granted, with costs to abide the event.

Hiscock, Ch. J., Hogan, Pound, McLaughlin, Crane and Andrews, JJ., concur.

Judgments reversed, etc.

Cardozo, Ch. J.

Plaintiff was standing on a platform of defendant’s railroad after buying a ticket to go to Rockaway Beach. A train stopped at the station, bound for another place. Two men ran forward to catch it. One of the men reached the platform of the car without mishap, though the train was already moving. The other man, carrying a package, jumped aboard the car, but seemed unsteady as if about to fall. A guard on the car, who had held the door open, reached forward to help *341him in, and another guard on the platform pushed him from behind. In this act, the package was dislodged, and fell upon the rails. It was a package of small size, about fifteen inches long, and was covered by a newspaper.

In fact it contained fireworks, but there was nothing in its appearance to give notice of its contents. The fireworks when they fell exploded. The shock of the explosion threw down some scales at the other end of the platform, many feet away. The scales struck the plaintiff, causing injuries for which she sues.

The conduct of the defendant’s guard, if a wrong in its relation to the holder of the package, was not a wrong in its relation to the plaintiff, standing far away. Relatively , to her it was not negligence at all. Nothing in the situation gave notice that the falling package had in it the potency of peril to persons thus removed. Negligence is not actionable unless it involves the invasion of a legally protected interest, the violation of a right. “Proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do” (Pollock, Torts [11th ed.], p. 455; Martin v. Herzog, 228 N. Y. 164, 170; cf. Salmond, Torts [6th ed.], p. 24). “Negligence is the absence of care, according to the circumstances” (Willes, J., in Vaughan v. Taff Vale Ry. Co., 5 H. & N. 679, 688; 1 Beven, Negligence [4th ed.], 7; Paul v. Consol. Fireworks Co., 212 N. Y. 117; Adams v. Bullock, 227 N. Y. 208, 211; Parrott v. Wells-Fargo Co., 15 Wall. [U. S.] 524). The plaintiff as she stood upon the platform of the station might claim to be protected against intentional invasion of her bodily security. Such invasion is not charged. She might claim to be protected against unintentional invasion by conduct involving in the thought of reasonable men an unreasonable hazard that such invasion would ensue. These, from the point of view of the law, were the bounds of her immunity, with perhaps some rare exceptions, survivals for the most part of ancient forms of liability, where conduct is held to be at the peril of the actor (Sullivan v. Dunham, 161 N. Y. *342(290). If no hazard was apparent to the eye of ordinary vigilance, an act innocent and harmless, at least to outward seeming, with reference to her, did not take to itself the quality of a tort because it happened to be a wrong, though apparently not one involving the risk of bodily insecurity, with reference to some one else. “In every instance, before negligence can be predicated of a given act, back of the act must be sought and found a duty to the individual complaining, the observance of which would have averted or avoided the injury” (McSherry, C. J., in W. Va. Central R. Co. v. State, 96 Md. 652, 666; cf. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co. v. Wood, 99 Va. 156, 158, 159; Hughes v. Boston & Maine R. R. Co., 71 N. H. 279, 284; U. S. Express Co. v. Everest, 72 Kan. 517; Emry v. Roanoke Nav. Co., 111 N. C. 94, 95; Vaughan v. Transit Dev. Co., 222 N. Y. 79; Losee v. Clute, 51 N. Y. 494; DiCaprio v. N. Y. C. R. R. Co., 231 N. Y. 94; 1 Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, § 8, and cases cited; Cooley on Torts [3d ed.], p. 1411; Jaggard on Torts, vol. 2, p. 826; Wharton, Negligence, § 24; Bohlen, Studies in the Law of Torts, p. 601). “The ideas of negligence and duty are strictly correlative” (Bowen, L. J., in Thomas v. Quartermaine, 18 Q. B. D. 685, 694). The plaintiff sues in her own right for a wrong personal to her, and not as the vicarious beneficiary of a breach of duty to another.

A different conclusion will involve us, and swiftly too, in a maze of contradictions. A guard stumbles over a package which has been left upon a platform. It seems to be a bundle of newspapers. It turns out to be a can of dynamite. To the eye of ordinary vigilance, the bundle is abandoned waste, which may be kicked or trod on with impunity. Is a passenger at the other end of the platform protected by the law against the unsuspected hazard concealed beneath the waste? If not, is the result to be any different, so far as the distant passenger is concerned, when the guard stumbles over a valise *343which a truckman or a porter has left upon the walk? The passenger far away, if the victim of a wrong at all, has a cause of action, not derivative, but original and primary. His claim to be protected against invasion of his bodily security is neither greater nor less because the act resulting in the invasion is a wrong to another far removed. In this case, the rights that are said to have been violated, the interests said to have been invaded, are not even of the same order. The man was not injured in his person nor even put in danger. The purpose of the act, as well as its effect, was to make his person safe. If there was a wrong to him at all, which may very well be doubted, it was a wrong to a property interest only, the safety of his package. Out of this wrong to property, which threatened injury to nothing else, there has passed, we are told, to the plaintiff by derivation or succession a right of action for the invasion of an interest of another order, the right to bodily security. The diversity of interests emphasizes the futility of the effort to build the plaintiff’s right upon the basis of a wrong to some one else. The gain is one of emphasis, for a like result would follow if the interests were the same. Even then, the orbit of the danger as disclosed to the eye of reasonable vigilance would be the orbit of the duty. One who jostles one’s neighbor in a crowd does not invade the rights of others standing at the outer fringe when the unintended contact casts a bomb upon the ground. The wrongdoer as to them is the man who carries the bomb, not the one who explodes it without suspicion of the danger. Life will have to be made over, and human nature transformed, before prevision so extravagant can be accepted as the norm of conduct, the customary standard to which behavior must conform.

The argument for the plaintiff is built upon the shifting meanings of such words as “wrong” and “wrongful,” and shares their instability. What the plaintiff must *344show is “a wrong” to herself, i. e., a violation of her own right, and not merely a wrong to some one else, nor conduct “wrongful” because unsocial, but not “a wrong” to any one. We are told that one who drives at reckless speed through a crowded city street is guilty of a negligent act and, therefore, of a wrongful one irrespective of the consequences. Negligent the act is, and wrongful in the sense that it is unsocial, but wrongful and unsocial in relation to other travelers, only because the eye of vigilance perceives the risk of damage. If the same act were to be committed on a speedway or a race course, it would lose its wrongful quality. The risk reasonably to be perceived defines the duty to be obeyed, and risk imports relation; it is risk to another or to others within the range of apprehension (Seavey, Negligence, Subjective or Objective, 41 H. L. Rv. 6; Boronkay v. Robinson & Carpenter, 247 N. Y. 365). This does not mean, of course, that one who launches a destructive force is always relieved of liability if the force, though known to be destructive, pursues an unexpected path. “It was not necessary that the defendant should have had notice of the particular method in which an accident would occur, if the possibility of an accident was clear to the ordinarily prudent eye” (Munsey v. Webb, 231 U. S. 150,156; Condran v. Park & Tilford, 213 N. Y. 341, 345; Robert v. U. S. E. F. Corp., 240 N. Y. 474, 477). Some acts, such as shooting, are so imminently dangerous to any one who may come within reach of the missile, however unexpectedly, as to impose a duty of prevision not far from that of an insurer. Even today, and much oftener in earlier stages of the law, one acts sometimes at one’s peril (Jeremiah Smith, Tort and Absolute Liability, 30 H. L. Rv. 328; Street, Foundations of Legal Liability, vol. 1, pp. 77, 78). Under this head, it may be, fall certain cases of what is known as transferred intent, an act willfully dangerous to A resulting by misadventure in injury to B (Talmage v. Smith, 101 Mich. 370, 374). *345These cases aside, wrong is defined in terms of the natural or probable, at least when unintentional (Parrot v. Wells-Fargo Co. [The Nitro-Glycerine Case], 15 Wall. [U. S.] 524). The range of reasonable apprehension is at times a question for the court, and at times, if varying inferences are possible, a question for the jury. Here, by concession, there was nothing in the situation to suggest to the most cautious mind that the parcel wrapped in newspaper would spread wreckage through the station. If the guard had thrown it down knowingly and willfully, he would not have threatened the plaintiff’s safety, so far as appearances could warn him. His conduct would not have involved, even then, an unreasonable probability of invasion of her bodily security. Liability can be no greater where the act is inadvertent.

Negligence, like risk, is thus a term of relation. Negligence in the abstract, apart from things related, is surely not a tort, if indeed it is understandable at all (Bowen, L. J., in Thomas v. Quartermaine, 18 Q. B. D. 685, 694). Negligence is not a tort unless it results in the commission of a wrong, and the commission of a wrong imports the violation of a right, in this case, we are told, the right to be protected against interference with one’s bodily security. But bodily security is protected, not against all forms of interference or aggression, but only against some. One who seeks redress at law does not make out a cause of action by showing without more that there has been damage to his person. If the harm was not willful, he must show that the act as to him had possibilities of danger so many and apparent as to entitle him to be protected against the doing of it though the harm was unintended. Affront to personality is still the keynote of the wrong. Confirmation of this view will be found in the history and development of the action on the case. Negligence as a basis of civil liability was unknown to mediaeval law (8 Holdsworth, History of English Law, p. 449; Street, Foundations of Legal Liability, vol. 1, *346pp. 189, 190). For damage to the person, the sole remedy was trespass, and trespass did not lie in the absence of aggression, and that direct and personal (Holdsworth, op. cit. p. 453; Street, op. cit. vol. 3, pp. 258, 260, vol. 1, pp. 71, 74.) Liability for other damage, as where a servant without orders from the master does or omits something to the damage of another, is a plant of later growth (Holdsworth, op. cit. 450, 457; Wigmore, Responsibility for Tortious Acts, vol. 3, Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, 520, 523, 526, 533). When it emerged out of the legal soil, it was thought of as a variant of trespass, an offshoot of the parent stock. This appears in the form of action, which was known as trespass on the case (Holdsworth, op. cit. p. 449; cf. Scott v. Shepard, 2 Wm. Black. 892; Green, Rationale of Proximate Cause, p. 19). The victim does not sue derivatively, or by right of subrogation, to vindicate an interest invaded in the person of another. Thus to view his cause of action is to ignore the fundamental difference between tort and crime (Holland, Jurisprudence [12th ed.], p. 328). He sues for breach of a duty owing to himself.

The law of causation, remote or proximate, is thus foreign to the case before us. The question of liability is always anterior to the question of the measure of the consequences that go with liability. If there is no tort to be redressed, there is no occasion to consider what damage might be recovered if there were a finding of a tort. We may assume, without deciding, that negligence, not at large or in the abstract, but in relation to the plaintiff, would entail liability for any and all consequences, however novel or extraordinary (Bird v. St. Paul F. & M. Ins. Co., 224 N. Y. 47, 54; Ehrgott v. Mayor, etc., of N. Y., 96 N. Y. 264; Smith v. London & S. W. Ry. Co., L. R. 6 C. P. 14; 1 Beven, Negligence, 106; Street, op. cit. vol. 1, p. 90; Green, Rationale of Proximate Cause, pp. 88, 118; cf. Matter of Polemis, L. R. 1921, 3 K. B. 560; 44 Law Quarterly Review, 142). There is room for *347argument that a distinction is to be drawn according to the diversity of interests invaded by the act, as where conduct negligent in that it threatens an insignificant invasion of an interest in property results in an unforseeable invasion of an interest of another order, as, e. g., one of bodily security. Perhaps other distinctions may be necessary. We do not go into the question now. The consequences to be followed must first be rooted in a wrong.

The judgment of the Appellate Division and that of the Trial Term should be reversed, and the complaint dismissed, with costs in all courts.

Andrews, J.

(dissenting). Assisting a passenger to board a train, the defendant’s servant negligently knocked a package from his arms. It fell between the platform and the cars. Of its contents the servant knew and could know nothing. A violent explosion followed. The concussion broke some scales standing a considerable distance away. In falling they injured the plaintiff, an intending passenger.

Upon these facts may she recover the damages she has suffered in an action brought against the master? The result we shall reach depends upon our theory as to the nature of negligence. Is it a relative concept — the breach of some duty owing to a particular person or to particular persons? Or where there is an act which unreasonably threatens the safety of others, is the doer liable for all its proximate consequences, even where they result in injury to one who would generally be thought to be outside the radius of danger? This is not a mere dispute as to words. We might not believe that to the average mind the dropping of the bundle would seem to involve the probability of harm to the plaintiff standing many feet away whatever might be the case as to the owner or to one so near as to be likely to be struck by its fall. If, however, we adopt the second hypoth*348esis we have to inquire only as to the relation between cause and effect. We deal in terms of proximate cause, not of negligence.

Negligence may be defined roughly as an act or omission which unreasonably does or may affect the rights of others, or which unreasonably fails to protect oneself from the dangers resulting from such acts. Here I confine myself to the first branch of the definition. Nor do I comment on the word “unreasonable.” For present purposes it sufficiently describes that average of conduct that society requires of its members.

There must be both the act or the omission, and the right. It is the act itself, not the intent of the actor, that is important. (Hover v. Barkhoof, 44 N. Y. 113; Mertz v. Connecticut Co., 217 N. Y. 475.) In criminal law both the intent and the result are to be considered. Intent again is material in tort actions, where punitive damages are sought, dependent on actual malice — not on merely reckless conduct. But here neither insanity nor infancy lessens responsibility. (Williams v. Hays, 143 N. Y. 442.)

As has been said, except in cases of contributory negligence, there must be rights which are or may be affected. Often though injury has occurred, no rights of him who suffers have been touched. A licensee or trespasser upon my land has no claim to affirmative care on my part that the land be made safe. (Meiers v. Koch Brewery, 229 N. Y. 10.) Where a railroad is required to fence its tracks against cattle, no man’s rights are injured should he wander upon the road because such fence is absent. (Di Caprio v. N. Y. C. R. R., 231 N. Y. 94.) An unborn child may not demand immunity from personal harm. (Drobner v. Peters, 232 N. Y. 220.)

But we are told that “there is no negligence unless there is in the particular case a legal duty to take care, and this duty must be one which is owed to the plaintiff *349himself and not merely to others.” (Salmond Torts [6th ed.], 24.) This, I think too narrow a conception. Where there is the unreasonable act, and some right that may be affected there is negligence whether damage does or does not result. That is immaterial. Should we drive down Broadway at a reckless speed, we are negligent whether we strike an approaching car or miss it by an inch. The act itself is wrongful. It is a wrong not only to those who happen to be within the radius of danger but to all who might have been there — a wrong to the public at large. Such is the language of the street. Such the language of the courts when speaking of contributory negligence. Such again and again their language in speaking of the duty of some defendant and discussing proximate cause in cases where such a discussion is wholly irrelevant on any other theory. (Perry v. Rochester Line Co., 219 N. Y. 60.) As was said by Mr. Justice Holmes many years ago, “the measure of the defendant’s duty in determining whether a wrong has been committed is one thing, the measure of liability when a wrong has been committed is another.” (Spade v. Lynn & Boston R. R. Co., 172 Mass. 488.) Due care is a duty imposed on each one of us to protect society from unnecessary danger, not to protect A, B or C alone.

It may well be that there is no such thing as negligence in the abstract. “Proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do.” In an empty world negligence would not exist. It does involve a relationship between man and his fellows. But not merely a relationship between man and those whom he might reasonably expect his act would injure. Rather, a relationship between him and those whom he does in fact injure. If his act has a tendency to harm some one, it harms him a mile away as surely as it does those on the scene. We now permit children to recover for the negligent killing of the father. It was never prevented on the theory that no duty was owing to them. A husband may be compensated for *350the loss of his wife’s services. To say that the wrongdoer was negligent as to the husband as well as to the wife is merely an attempt to fit facts to theory. An insurance company paying a fire loss recovers its payment of the negligent incendiary. We speak of subrogation— of suing in the right of the insured. Behind the cloud of words is the fact they hide, that the act, wrongful as to the insured, has also injured the company. Even if it be true that the fault of father, wife or insured will prevent recovery, it is because we consider the original negligence not the proximate cause of the injury. (Pollock, Torts [12th ed.], 463.)

In the well-known Polemis Case (1921, 3 K. B. 560), Scrutton, L. J., said that the dropping of a plank was negligent for it might injure “workman or cargo or ship.” Because of either possibility the owner of the vessel was to be made good for his loss. The act being wrongful the doer was liable for its proximate results. Criticized and explained as this statement may have been, I think it states the law as it should be and as it is. (Smith v. London & Southwestern Ry. Co., [1870-71] 6 C. P. 14; Anthony v. Staid, 52 Mass. 290; Wood v. Penn. R. R. Co., 177 Penn. St. 306; Trashansky v. Hershkovitz, 239 N. Y. 452.)

The proposition is this. Every one owes to the world at large the duty of refraining from those acts that may unreasonably threaten the safety of others. Such an act occurs. Not only is he wronged to whom harm might reasonably be expected to result, but he also who is in fact injured, even if he be outside what would generally be thought the danger zone. There needs be duty due the one complaining but this is not a duty to a particular individual because as to him harm might be expected. Harm to some one being the natural result of the act, not only that one alone, but all those in fact injured may complain. We have never, I think, held otherwise. Indeed in the Di Caprio case we said that a breach of a *351general ordinance defining the degree of care to be exercised in one’s calling is evidence of negligence as to every one. We did not limit this statement to those who might be expected to be exposed to danger. Unreasonable risk being taken, its consequences are not confined to those who might probably be hurt.

If this be so, we do not have a plaintiff suing by “derivation or succession.” Her action is original and primary. Her claim is for a breach of duty to herself — not that she is subrogated to any right of action of the owner of the parcel or of a passenger standing at the scene of the explosion.

The right to recover damages rests on additional considerations. The plaintiff’s rights must be injured, and this injury must be caused by the negligence. We build a dam, but are negligent as to its foundations. Breaking, it injures property down stream. We are not liable if all this happened because of some reason other than the insecure foundation. But when injuries do result from our unlawful act we are liable for the consequences. It does not matter that they are unusual, unexpected, unforeseen and unforseeable. But there is one limitation. The damages must be so connected with the negligence that the latter may be said to be the proximate cause of the former.

These two words have never been given an inclusive definition. What is a cause in a legal sense, still more what is a proximate cause, depend in each case upon many considerations, as does the existence of negligence itself. Any philosophical doctrine of causation does not help us. A boy throws a stone into a pond. The ripples spread. The water level rises. The history of that pond is altered to all eternity. It will be altered by other causes also. Yet it will be forever the resultant of all causes combined. Each one will have an influence. How great only omniscience can say. You may speak of a chain, or if you please, a net. An analogy is of little aid. *352Each cause brings about future events. Without each the future would not be the same. Each is proximate in the sense it is essential. But that is not what we mean by the word. Nor on the other hand do we mean sole cause. There is no such thing.

Should analogy be thought helpful, however, I prefer that of a stream. The spring, starting on its journey, is joined by tributary after tributary. The river, reaching the ocean, comes from a hundred sources. No man may say whence any drop of water is derived. Yet for a time distinction may be possible. Into the clear creek, brown swamp water flows from the left. Later, from the right comes water stained by its clay bed. The three may remain for a space, sharply divided. But at last, inevitably no trace of separation remains. They are so commingled that all distinction is lost.

As we have said, we cannot trace the effect of an act to the end, if end there is. Again, however, we may trace it part of the way. A murder at Serajevo may be the necessary antecedent to an assassination in London twenty years hence. An overturned lantern may burn all Chicago. We may follow the fire from the shed to the last building. We rightly say the fire started by the lantern caused its destruction.

A cause, but not the proximate cause. What we do mean by the word “proximate” is, that because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point. This is not logic. It is practical politics. Take our rule as to fires. Sparks from my burning haystack set on fire my house and my neighbor’s. I may recover from a negligent railroad. He may not. Yet the wrongful act as directly harmed the one as the other. We may regret that the line was drawn just where it was, but drawn somewhere it had to be. We said the act of the railroad was not the proximate cause of our neighbor’s fire. Cause it surely was. The words we used were *353simply indicative of our notions of public policy. Other courts think differently. But somewhere they reach the point where they cannot say the stream comes from any one source.

Take the illustration given in an unpublished manuscript by a distinguished and helpful writer on the law of torts. A chauffeur negligently collides with another car which is filled with dynamite, although he could not know it. An explosion follows. A, walking on the sidewalk nearby, is killed. B, sitting in a window of a building opposite, is cut by flying glass. C, likewise sitting in a window a block away, is similarly injured. And a further illustration. A nursemaid, ten blocks away, startled by the noise, involuntarily drops a baby from her arms to the walk. We are told that C may not recover while A may. As to B it is a question for court or jury. We will all agree that the baby might not. Because, we are again told, the chauffeur had no reason to believe his conduct involved any risk of injuring either C or the baby. As to them he was not negligent.

But the chauffeur, being negligent in risking the collision, his belief that the scope of the harm he might do would be limited is immaterial. His act unreasonably jeopardized the safety of any one who might be affected by it. C’s injury and that of the baby were directly traceable to the collision. Without that, the injury would not have happened. C had the right to sit in his office, secure from such dangers. The baby was entitled to use the sidewalk with reasonable safety.

The true theory is, it seems to me, that the injury to C, if in truth he is to be denied recovery, and the injury to the baby is that their several injuries were not the proximate result of the negligence. And here not what the chauffeur had reason to believe would be the result of his conduct, but what the prudent would foresee, may have a bearing. May have some bearing, for the prob*354lem of proximate cause is not to be solved by any one consideration.

It is all a question of expediency. There are no fixed rules to govern our judgment. There are simply matters of which we may take account. We have in a somewhat different connection spoken of “the stream of events.” We have asked whether that stream was deflected — whether it was forced into new and unexpected channels. (Donnelly v. Pierey Contracting Co., 222 N. Y. 210). This is rather rhetoric than law. There is in truth little to guide us other than common sense.

There are some hints that may help us. The proximate cause, involved as it may be with many other causes, must be, at the least, something without which the event would not happen. The court must ask itself whether there was a natural and continuous sequence between cause and effect. Was the one a substantial factor in producing the other? Was there a direct connection between them, without too many intervening causes? Is the effect of cause on result not too attentuated? Is the cause likely, in the usual judgment of mankind, to produce the result? Or by the exercise of prudent foresight could the result be foreseen? Is the result too remote from the cause, and here we consider remoteness in time and space. (Bird v. St. Paul F. & M. Ins. Co., 224 N. Y. 47, where we passed upon the construction of a contract — but something was also said on this subject.) Clearly we must so consider, for the greater the distance either in time or space, the more surely do other causes intervene to affect the result. When a lantern is overturned the firing of a shed is a fairly direct consequence. Many things contribute to the spread of the conflagration — the force of the wind, the direction and width of streets, the character of intervening structures, other factors. We draw an uncertain and wavering line, but draw it we must as best we can.

Once again, it is all a question of fair judgment, always *355keeping in mind the fact that we endeavor to make a rule in each case that will be practical and in keeping with the general understanding of mankind.

Here another question must be answered. In the case supposed it is said, and said correctly, that the chauffeur is liable for the direct effect of the explosion although he had no reason to suppose it would follow a collision. “The fact that the injury occurred in a different manner than that which might have been expected does not prevent the chauffeur’s negligence from being in law the cause of the injury.” But the natural results of a negligent act — the results which a prudent man would or should foresee — do have a bearing upon the decision as to proximate cause. We have said so repeatedly. What should be foreseen? No human foresight would suggest that a collision itself might injure one a block away. On the contrary, given an explosion, such a possibility might be reasonably expected. I think the direct connection, the foresight of which the courts speak, assumes prevision of the explosion, for the immediate results of which, at least, the chauffeur is responsible.

It may be said this is unjust. Why? In fairness he should make good every injury flowing from his negligence. Not because of tenderness toward him we say he need not answer for all that follows his wrong. We look back to the catastrophe, the fire kindled by the spark, or the explosion. We trace the consequences — not indefinitely, but to a certain point. And to aid us in fixing that point we ask what might ordinarily be expected to follow the fire or the explosion.

This last suggestion is the factor which must determine the case before us. The act upon which defendant’s liability rests is knocking an apparently harmless package onto the platform. The act was negligent. For its proximate consequences the defendant is liable. If its contents were broken, to the owner; if it fell upon and crushed a passenger’s foot, then to him. If it exploded *356and injured one in the immediate vicinity, to him also as to A in the illustration. Mrs. Palsgraf was standing some distance away. How far cannot be told from the record — apparently twenty-five or thirty feet. Perhaps less. Except for the explosion, she would not have been injured. We are told by the appellant in his brief “it cannot be denied that the explosion was the direct cause of the plaintiff’s injuries.” So it was a substantial factor in producing the result — there was here a natural and continuous sequence — direct connection. The only intervening cause was that instead of blowing her to the ground the concussion smashed the weighing machine which in turn fell upon her. There was no remoteness in time, little in space. And surely, given such an explosion as here it needed no great foresight to predict that the natural result would be to injure one on the platform at no greater distance from its scene than was the plaintiff. Just how no one might be able to predict. Whether by flying fragments, by broken glass, by wreckage of machines or structures no one could say. But injury in some form was most probable.

Under these circumstances I cannot say as a matter of law that the plaintiff’s injuries were not the proximate result of the negligence. That is all we have before us. The court refused to so charge. No request was made to submit the matter to the jury as a question of fact, even would that have been proper upon the record before us.

The judgment appealed from should be affirmed, with costs.

Pound, Lehman and Kellogg, JJ., concur with Cardozo, Ch. J.; Andrews, J., dissents in opinion in which Crane and O’Brien, JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed, etc.

McGIVERIN, Chief Justice.

The main question here is whether the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the “eggshell plaintiff” rule in view of the fact that plaintiff’s decedent, who had a history of coronary disease, died of a heart attack six days after suffering a bruised chest and fractured ankle in a motor vehicle accident caused by defendant’s negligence. The court of appeals concluded that the trial court’s refusal constituted reversible error. We agree with the court of appeals and reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand for a new trial.

I. Background facts and proceedings. On February 15, 1989, on an icy road in Missouri, a semi-tractor and trailer rear-ended a van in which Loras J. Benn was a passenger. In the accident, Loras suffered a bruised chest and a fractured ankle. Six days later he died of a heart attack.

Subsequently, Carol A. Benn, as executor of Loras’s estate, filed suit against defendants Leland R. Thomas, the driver of the semi-tractor, K-G Ltd., the owner of the semi-tractor and trailer, and Heartland Express, the permanent lessee of the semi-tractor and trailer. The plaintiff estate sought damages for Loras’s injuries and death. For the purposes of simplicity, we will refer to all defendants in the singular.

At trial, the estate’s medical expert, Dr. James E. Davia, testified that Loras had a history of coronary disease and insulin-dependent diabetes. Loras had a heart attack in 1985 and was at risk of having another. Dr. Davia testified that he viewed “the accident that [Loras] was in and the attendant problems that it cause[d] in the body as the straw that broke the camel’s back” and the cause of Loras’s death. Other medical evidence indicated the accident did not cause his death.

Based on Dr. Davia’s testimony, the estate requested an instruction to the jury based on the “eggshell plaintiff” rule, which requires the defendant to take his plaintiff as he finds him, even if that means that the defendant must compensate the plaintiff for harm an ordinary person would not have suffered. See Becker v. D &E Distrib. Co., 247 N.W.2d 727, 730 (Iowa 1976). The district court denied this request.

The jury returned a verdict for the estate in the amount of $17,000 for Loras’s injuries but nothing for his death. In the special verdict, the jury determined the defendant’s negligence in connection with the accident did not proximately cause Loras’s death.

The estate filed a motion for new trial claiming the court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on the “eggshell plaintiff” rule. The court denied the motion, concluding that the instructions given to the jury appropriately informed them of the applicable law.

The plaintiff estate appealed. The court of appeals reversed the trial court, concluding that the plaintiffs evidence required a specific instruction on the eggshell plaintiff rule. Two other assignments of error are raised in which we find no merit.

II. Jury instructions and the “eggshell plaintiff” rule. The estate claims that the court erred in failing to include, in addition to its proximate cause instruction to the jury, a requested instruction on the eggshell plaintiff rule. Such an instruction would advise the jury that it could find that the accident aggravated Loras’s heart condition and caused his fatal heart attack. The trial court denied this request, submitting instead a general instruction on proximate cause. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the trial court erred in refusing to specifically instruct on the eggshell plaintiff doctrine.

Under Iowa rule of civil procedure 244(h), an aggrieved party may, on motion, have an adverse verdict or decision vacated *539and a new trial granted for errors of law occurring in the proceedings only if the errors materially affected the party’s substantial rights. When jury instructions contain a material misstatement of the law, the trial court has no discretion to deny a motion for a new trial. See Brown v. Lyon, 258 Iowa 1216, 1222, 142 N.W.2d 536, 539 (1966). Our review, therefore, is for correction of errors at law. Iowa R.App.P. 4. We find reversible error when the instructions given to the jury, viewed as a whole, fail to convey the applicable law. Sanders v. Ghrist, 421 N.W.2d 520, 522 (Iowa 1988).

A tortfeasor whose act, superimposed upon a prior latent condition, results in an injury may be liable in damages for the full disability. Becker, 247 N.W.2d at 731. This rule deems the injury, and not the dormant condition, the proximate cause of the plaintiffs harm. Id. This precept is often referred to as the “eggshell plaintiff” rule, which has its roots in eases such as Dulieu v. White & Sons, [1901] 2 K.B. 669, 679, where the court observed:

If a man is negligently run over or otherwise negligently injured in his body, it is no answer to the sufferer’s claim for damages that he would have suffered less injury, or no injury at all, if he had not had an unusually thin skull or an unusually weak heart.

See generally 4 Fowler V. Harper et al., The Law of Torts § 20.3, at 123 & n. 25 (2d ed. 1986); W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on The Law of Torts § 43, at 292 (5th ed. 1984) [hereinafter Prosser & Keeton].

The proposed instruction here stated:

If Loras Benn had a prior heart condition making him more susceptible to injury than a person in normal health, then the Defendant is responsible for all injuries and damages which are experienced by Loras Benn, proximately caused by the Defendant’s actions, even though the injuries claimed produced a greater injury than those which might have been experienced by a normal person under the same circumstances.

See Iowa Uniform Jury Instruction 200.34 (1993) (citing Becker).

Defendant contends that plaintiffs proposed instruction was inappropriate because it concerned damages, not proximate cause. Although the eggshell plaintiff rule has been incorporated into the Damages section of the Iowa Uniform Civil Jury Instructions, we believe it is equally a rule of proximate cause. See Christianson v. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Ry. Co., 69 N.W. 640, 641 (Minn.1896) (“Consequences which follow in unbroken sequence, without an intervening efficient cause, from the original negligent act, are natural and proximate; and for such consequences the original wrongdoer is responsible, even though he could not have foreseen the particular results which did follow.”).

Defendant further claims that the instructions that the court gave sufficiently conveyed the applicable law.

The proximate cause instruction in this case provided:

The conduct of a party is a proximate cause of damage when it is a substantial factor in producing damage and when the damage would not have happened except for the conduct.

“Substantial” means the party’s conduct has such an effect in producing damage as to lead a reasonable person to regard it as a cause.

See Iowa Uniform Jury Instruction 700.3. Special Verdict Number 4 asked the jury: “Was. the negligence of Leland Thomas a proximate cause of Loras Benn’s death?” The jury answered this question, “No.”

We agree that the jury might have found the defendant liable for Loras’s death as well as his injuries under the instructions as given. But the proximate cause instruction failed to adequately convey the existing law that the jury should have applied to this case. The eggshell plaintiff rule rejects the limit of foreseeability that courts ordinarily require in the determination of proximate cause. Prosser & Keeton § 43, at 291 (“The defendant is held liable for unusual results of personal injuries which are regarded as un-foreseeable. . . .”). Once the plaintiff establishes that the defendant caused some injury to the plaintiff, the rule imposes liability for *540the full extent of those injuries, not merely those that were foreseeable to the defendant. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 461 (1965) (“The negligent actor is subject to liability for harm to another although a physical condition of the other ... makes the injury greater than that which the actor as a reasonable man should have foreseen as a probable result of his conduct.”).

The instruction given by the court was appropriate as to the question of whether defendant caused Loras’s initial personal injuries, namely, the fractured ankle and the bruised chest. This instruction alone, however, failed to adequately convey to the jury the eggshell plaintiff rule, which the jury reasonably could have applied to the cause of Loras’s death.

Defendant maintains “[t]he fact there was extensive heart disease and that Loras Benn was at risk any time is not sufficient” for an instruction on the eggshell plaintiff rule. Yet the plaintiff introduced substantial medical testimony that the stresses of the accident and subsequent treatment were responsible for his heart attack and death. Although the evidence was conflicting, we believe that it was sufficient for the jury to determine whether Loras’s heart attack and death were the direct result of the injury fairly chargeable to defendant Thomas’s negligence. See Nicoll v. Sweet, 163 Iowa 683, 684-85, 144 N.W. 615, 616 (1913).

Defendant nevertheless maintains that an eggshell plaintiff instruction would draw undue emphasis and attention to Loras’s prior infirm condition. We have, however, explicitly approved such an instruction in two prior cases. See Woode v. Kabela, 256 Iowa 622, 632, 128 N.W.2d 241, 247 (1964) (“It was proper for the court to instruct with reference to the condition because if the negligent actions of defendant were such that [plaintiffs] former poor physical condition was revived or was enhanced he was entitled to damages because of such condition.”); Hackley v. Robinson, 219 N.W. 398, 398-99 (Iowa 1928) (approving instruction allowing plaintiff to recover upon a showing “that the injury directly caused the dormant or inactive tuberculosis to become revivified”).

Moreover, the other jurisdictions that have addressed the issue have concluded that a court’s refusal to instruct on the eggshell plaintiff rule constitutes a failure to convey the applicable law. See Priel v. R.E.D., Inc., 392 N.W.2d 65, 69 (N.D.1986) (stating that instructions must advise the jury that defendant “cannot escape the consequences of its negligence merely because its negligence would not have caused that extent of injury to a normal person”); Pozzie v. Mike Smith, Inc., 33 Ill.App.3d 343, 337 N.E.2d 450, 453 (1975) (stating that the failure of the court to instruct on the eggshell plaintiff rule “left the jury without proper judicial guidance”).

To deprive the plaintiff estate of the requested instruction under this record would fail to convey to the jury a central principle of tort liability.

III. Hearsay objection to deposition evidence. Because it may arise on retrial, we address another of plaintiffs assignments of error, namely, its contention that the district court erred in excluding portions of the deposition testimony of a treating physician, Dr. Webb, on the basis that it was inadmissible hearsay. The estate argues that the defendant, who took the deposition, waived his objection to the deposition testimony by failing to object to the alleged hearsay during the deposition.

We reject this contention. Hearsay objections need not be made prior to or during a deposition and may be made when the deposition is offered at trial. See Iowa R.Civ.P. 158(e); Osborn v. Massey-Ferguson, Inc., 290 N.W.2d 893, 899 (Iowa 1980) (party does not have a duty to object to own questions during a deposition to preserve error for objection at trial).

IV. Disposition. We have reviewed the third assignment of error raised by plaintiff and conclude that it has no merit.

The record in this ease warranted an instruction on the eggshell plaintiff rule. We therefore affirm the decision of the court of appeals. We reverse the judgment of the district court and remand the cause to the district court for a new trial consistent with this opinion.

*541DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS AFFIRMED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED AND REMANDED.

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge:

On September 4, 1964, plaintiff Cynthia Steinhauser, a New Jersey citizen then 14 years old, her mother and father were driving south through Essex County, N. Y. A northbound car, owned by defendant Hertz Corporation, a Delaware corporation authorized to do business in New York, and operated by defendant Ponzini, a citizen of New York, crossed over a double yellow line in the highway into the southbound lane and struck the Steinhauser car heavily on the left side. The occupants did not suffer any bodily injuries.

The plaintiffs’ evidence was that within a few minutes after the accident Cynthia began to behave in an unusual way. Her parents observed her to be “glassy-eyed,” “upset,” “highly agitated,” “nervous” and “disturbed.” When Ponzini came toward the Steinhauser car, she jumped up and down and made menacing gestures until restrained by her father. On the way home she complained of a headache and became uncommunicative. In the following days things went steadily worse. Cynthia thought that she was being attacked and that knives, guns and bullets were coming through the windows. She was hostile toward her parents and assaulted them; becoming depressed, she attempted suicide.

The family physician recommended hospitalization. After observation and treatment in three hospitals, with a final diagnosis of “schizophrenic reaction —acute—undifferentiated,” she was released in December 1964 under the care of a psychiatrist, Dr. Royce, which continued until September 1966. His diagnosis, both at the beginning and at the end, was of a chronic schizophrenic reaction; he explained that by “chronic” he meant that Cynthia was not brought to him because of a sudden onset of symptoms. She then entered the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and, one month later, transferred to the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital for long-term therapy. Discharged in January 1968, she has required the care of a psychiatrist. The evidence was that the need for this will continue, that reinstitution-alization is likely, and that her prognosis is bad.

As the recital makes evident, the important issue was the existence of a causal relationship between the rather slight accident and Cynthia’s undoubtedly serious ailment.1 The testimony was *1171uncontradicted that prior to the accident she had never displayed such exaggerated symptoms as thereafter. However, she had fallen from a horse about two years earlier and suffered what was diagnosed as a minor concussion; she was not hospitalized but missed a month of school. The other evidence relied on by the defendants to show prior psychiatric abnormality was derived largely from the history furnished, apparently in large part by Cynthia, at her admission to the first of the three hospitals on September 20, 1964, which we set out in the margin.2

Dr. Royce testified that a person may have a predisposition to schizophrenia which, however, requires a “precipitating factor” to produce an outbreak. As a result of long observation he believed this to have been Cynthia’s case — that “she was a rather sensitive child and frequently exaggerated things and distorted things that happened within the family” but that the accident was “the precipitating cause” of her serious mental illness. Under cross-examination he stated that prior to the accident Cynthia had a “prepsychotic” personality but might have been able to lead a normal life. Dr. Stevens, attending psychiatrist at the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, who had treated Cynthia, in answer to a hypothetical question which included the incidents relied on by the defendants to show prior abnormality, was of the opinion that the accident “was the precipitating cause of the overt psychotic reaction,” “the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.” 3 In contrast defendants’ expert, Dr. Brock, while agreeing that “with a background of fertile soil” schizophrenia can be induced by emotional strain, was of the opinion, based largely on the matters recited in footnote 2, that Cynthia was already schizophrenic at the time of the accident.

At the conclusion of the evidence the judge remarked to counsel, outside the presence of the jury, that, as he saw it, the sole question in the case was whether plaintiff had established that defendants caused Cynthia’s condition or aggravated a pre-existing one. Even though plaintiffs’ experts had testified in terms of precipitating rather than aggravating, it may be that if matters had been left right there, the jury would have understood. However, defendants’ counsel, after correctly noting that “the question is not aggravate but precipitate,” went on to say that, while that had been his understanding of plaintiffs’ theory as outlined in counsel’s opening statement, he now understood plaintiffs to be taking the position that the accident “caused schizophrenia.” Taking this up, the judge asked plaintiffs’ counsel, “Isn’t it your position that this child was perfectly normal before this accident and that this accident caused schizophrenia?” When counsel responded that “this child was a fairly normal child, your Honor, and — ” the judge demanded a direct answer whether it was *1172plaintiffs’ position that Cynthia “did not have schizophrenia before this accident.” After counsel, not unnaturally, had responded in the affirmative, the judge said he would put the ease to the jury on the basis of proximate cause. Further efforts by counsel to explain that his theory was one of “precipitating cause of a quiescent disease” proved unavailing; the judge insisted that he choose between saying “that this plaintiff was perfectly normal and that she got this schizophrenia as a result of the accident” or admitting “that she had schizophrenia before this accident, and that this accident only aggravated a pre-existing condition. There is no in-between position.” Counsel remarked that there were “a host of other positions” between Cynthia’s being “the most perfect child” or being schizophrenic before the accident, but the judge was not persuaded. When trial counsel again referred to “precipitating cause,” the judge asked for supporting authority. Counsel cited, of all cases, Palsgraf v. Long Island R. R., 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99, 59 A.L.R. 1253 (1928)!

The charge followed the black-and-white pattern prefigured in the colloquy. The judge said the plaintiffs claimed the accident caused the schizophrenia whereas defendants contended “that this plaintiff has had this disease all along.” Defendant was not liable unless it “proximately caused” the disease. “Proximately is just a big word for what people use for cause.” If there was a “logical relationship” between the accident and plaintiffs’ “psychotic injuries,” defendants were responsible. But “if the child had this condition or disease all along and this defendant did not cause it,” the defendants were not liable. Damages could be awarded only if the accident caused the schizophrenic condition but not if Cynthia “already had the disease.”

After several hours of deliberation the jury propounded the following question:

If we find the auto accident was the precipitating factor, but not the cause of the illness (schizophrenia) must we find for the plaintiff?

The judge responded by rereading what he had already said on proximate cause. Ten minutes later the jury brought in a defendants’ verdict.

It is plain enough that plaintiffs were deprived of a fair opportunity to have the jury consider the case on the basis of the medical evidence they had adduced. The testimony was that before the accident Cynthia was neither a “perfectly normal child” nor a schizophrenic, but a child with some degree of pathology which was activated into schizophrenia by an emotional trauma although it otherwise might not have blossomed. Whatever the medical soundness of this theory may or may not be, and there does not seem in fact to have been any dispute about it, see Guttmacher and Weihofen, Psychiatry and the Law 43-55 (1952), plaintiffs were entitled to have it fairly weighed by the jury. They could not properly be pinioned on the dilemma of having either to admit that Cynthia was already suffering from active schizophrenia or to assert that she was wholly without psychotic tendencies. The jury’s question showed how well they had perceived the true issue. When they were told in effect that plaintiffs could recover only if, contrary to ordinary experience, the accident alone produced the schizophrenia, the result was predestined.

It is unnecessary to engage in exhaustive citation of authority sustaining the legal validity of plaintiffs’ theory of the case. Since New York law governs, the oft-cited decision in McCahill v. New York Transportation Co., 201 N.Y. 221, 94 N.E. 616, 48 L.R.A.,N. S. 131 (1911), which plaintiffs’ appellate counsel has discovered, would alone suffice. There the defendant’s taxicab negligently hit McCahill, broke his thigh and injured his knee. After being hospitalized, he died two days later of delirium tremens. A physician testified that “the injury precipitated his attack of delirium tremens, and understand I mean *1173precipitated not induced”; he explained that by “precipitated,” he meant “hurried up,” — just what plaintiffs’ experts testified to be the role of the accident here. The Court of Appeals allowed recovery for wrongful death. In Champlin Refining Co. v. Thomas, 93 F.2d 133, 136 (10 Cir. 1937), the court held that “where one who has tubercular germs in his system suffers injuries due to the negligence of another, and the injuries so weaken the resistance of the tissues that as a direct consequence tubercular infection sets up therein, the negligence is the proximate cause of the tubercular infection and renders the negligent person liable in damages therefor.” There was no suggestion that plaintiff was required either to admit that he already “had” tuberculosis or to assert that the accident “caused” the development of the germs. Accord, Hazelwood v. Hodge, 357 S.W.2d 711 (Ky.1961). In Pigney v. Pointer’s Transport Services, Ltd., [1957] 1 W.L.R. 1121, recovery for wrongful death was allowed where head injuries induced an anxiety neurosis leading to suicide. Our own decision in Evans v. S. J. Groves & Sons Co., 315 F.2d 335, 346-349 (1963) [thrombosis of sinus possibly due in part to ear disease but “triggered” by blow to head] is also quite relevant. If more were needed, the New York Court of Claims decision in “A. A. v. State”, supra, note 1, seems directly on point. For further discussion of this familiar tort doctrine,4 see A.L.I. Restatement of Torts 2d § 461; Prosser, Torts 300-301 (3d ed. 1964); 2 Harper & James, The Law of Torts 1127-28 (1956); Hart and Honore Causation in the Law 160-62 (1959); Keeton, Legal Cause in the Law of Torts 67-69 (1963).

Defendants argue that, however all this may be, plaintiffs cannot be heard to complain because of the failure of their counsel to except to the charge and his statement that he had no objection to the judge’s handling of the jury’s question. This forgets that the purpose of the rule requiring objections is to prevent reversals and consequent new trials because of errors the judge might well have corrected if the point had been brought to his attention. Here counsel had made his position abundantly clear not only in the colloquy we have cited but also in one of his requests to charge, and it was plain that further efforts would be unavailing. See Keen v. Overseas Tankship Corp., 194 F.2d 515 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 343 U.S. 966, 72 S.Ct. 1061, 96 L.Ed. 1363 (1952). Indeed the judge had warned plaintiffs’ attorney not to take exceptions, which F.R.Civ.P. 46 makes unnecessary. In saying this we do not mean to excuse trial counsel for his apparent lack of acquaintance with the relevant authorities and his consequent failure to give the court the full assistance it deserved.

We add a further word that may be of importance on a new trial. Although the fact that Cynthia had latent psychotic tendencies would not defeat recovery if the accident was a precipitating cause of schizophrenia, this may have a significant bearing on the amount of damages. The defendants are entitled to explore the probability that the child might have developed schizophrenia in any event. While the evidence does not demonstrate that Cynthia already had the disease, it does suggest that she was a good prospect. Judge Hiscock said in McCahill, “it is easily seen that the probability of later death from existing causes for which a defendant was not responsible would probably be an important element in fixing damages, but it is not a defense.” 201 N.Y. at 224, 94 N.E. at 617. In Evans v. S. J. Groves & Sons Company, supra, we noted that if a defendant “succeeds in establishing that the plaintiff’s pre-existing condition was bound to worsen an appropriate discount should be made for the damages that would have been suffered even in the absence of the *1174defendant’s negligence.” 315 F.2d at 347-348. See also the famous case of Dillon v. Twin State Gas & Electric Co., 85 N.H. 449, 163 A. 111 (1932), and 2 Harper & James, supra, at 1128-1131. It is no answer that exact prediction of Cynthia’s future apart from the accident is difficult or even impossible. However taxing such a problem may be for men who have devoted their lives to psychiatry, it is one for which a jury is ideally suited.

Reversed for a new trial.

SHINN, P. J.

Appeal from a judgment in favor of defendant Los Angeles Transit Lines, following an order sustaining its demurrer to plaintiff’s complaint for personal injuries without leave to amend. Appellant recovered judgment by default against defendants Paul and C. M. Garcia in the sum of $25,000, which remains wholly unsatisfied.

Respondent corporation operates a general street railway system in Los Angeles, and maintains wooden poles adjacent to the curbing on Whittier Boulevard near the corner of Spence Street, as part of its system. Appellant was standing on the sidewalk near one of these poles when a 1938 Plymouth automobile, negligently driven by Paul Garcia, collided with the pole. It broke a short distance above the ground and fell on appellant, causing severe injuries. Paragraph IV of the complaint alleges: “That at the time of the aforesaid accident, defendant, Los Angeles Transit Lines, carelessly and negligently maintained the aforesaid wooden pole in that said pole was rotten and its strength had become badly impaired by rot or termites; that said pole had been in a rotten condition for a long period of time which condition was known to defendant, Los Angeles Transit Lines, or by the exercise of reasonable care, should have been known to said defendant; that said Whittier Boulevard is a main and heavily traveled highway used by thousands of automobiles daily and said defendant, Los Angeles Transit Lines, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have anticipated that accidents would occur upon said highway and that automobiles would be likely to come *683over the curbing and strike said pole and that if said pole was permitted to remain in a weakened condition as aforesaid that it would constitute a hazard to persons on the sidewalk and that the same was likely to be caused to fall upon or against said persons, and in particular, upon plaintiff; that the negligence of the defendant, Los Angeles Transit Lines, as aforesaid in maintaining said wooden pole in the condition above described together with the negligence of defendant Paul Garcia, in the operation of his said automobile contributed concurrently to cause the injuries to plaintiff hereinafter complained of. ”

It was the duty of respondent to select and maintain poles sufficiently strong to withstand the ordinary strain of weather conditions and other tests of strength likely to be encountered along a busy highway. (Keller v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 2 Cal.App.2d 513, 519 [38 P.2d 182].) It was bound to exercise ordinary care to keep its poles in a safe condition, so as not to expose passersby to an unreasonable risk of harm. The extent of this duty is measured by the standard of foreseeability of injury to the eyes of a reasonably prudent man having regard for the accompanying circumstances. (Mosley v. Arden Farms Co., 26 Cal.2d 213, 216 [157 P.2d 372, 158 A.L.R. 872] ; 1 Shearman & Redfield on Negligence, § 24; Rest., Torts, §§ 284, 289, 290.) Of course, “[d]efendant is not bound to build its line so strong that it cannot be blown or broken down. It does not insure the safety of travelers on the highway from injuries if its poles and wires are properly and lawfully placed, but it is bound to use reasonable care. . . . Its poles, wires and equipment must be strong enough to withstand any violence which reasonably may be anticipated.” (Ray v. New York Telephone Co., 260 App.Div. 405 [23 N.Y.S.2d 508, 509], paraphrasing Ward v. Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Co., 71 N.Y. 81 [27 Am.Rep. 10]; see, also, Stewart v. San Joaquin L. & P. Co., 44 Cal.App. 202, 207 [186 P. 160] ; Royal Indemnity Co. v. Midland Counties Public Serv. Corp., 42 Cal.App. 628, 632-633 [183 P. 960].) Under the allegations of the complaint, plaintiff would be entitled to prove that respondent’s pole was in such an advanced state of deterioration that it could be caused to fall by a relatively light force, such as an ordinary rain or wind storm might produce, or that it might even be upon the verge of falling of its own weight; that respondent knew, or should have known of such condition; and that reasonable precautions were not *684taken. Such proof would justify a conclusion that respondent was negligent. Whether the test of ordinary care was met was an issue for the trier of fact. (19 CaLJur. § 134, p. 723.)

It is respondent’s contention that, as a matter of law, any negligence of which it may have been guilty could not have been the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries. The termite-weakened pole, it is argued, furnished only the condition upon which the unforeseeable intervening act of Paul Garcia operated independently to cause the harm. In the cases upon which respondent relies in support of this proposition (Sweet v. Los Angeles Railway Co., 79 Cal.App.2d 195 [179 P.2d 824] ; Hayden v. Paramount Productions, Inc., 33 Cal.App.2d 287 [91 P.2d 231] ; and Klarquist v. Chamberlain & Proctor, 124 Cal.App. 398 [12 P.2d 664]), it was determined, either as a matter of law or as a matter of fact, that the condition created by defendant was not, of itself, likely to result in the injury which occurred, and the sole proximate cause of the injury was the intervening act. We must take the facts as they are alleged in the complaint, and as will be developed, the presented questions of fact on the issues of negligence and of proximate cause.

It is well settled that proximate causation is not always arrested by the intervention of an independent force. If the original negligence continues to the time of the injury and contributes substantially thereto in conjunction with the intervening act, each may be a proximate concurring cause for which full liability may be imposed. (Gerberich v. Southern Calif. Edison Co., 5 Cal.2d 46 [53 P.2d 948] ; Lacy v. Pacific Gas & Electric Co., 220 Cal. 97 [29 P.2d 781] ; De Corsey v. Purex Corp., 92 Cal.App.2d 669, 675 [207 P.2d 616].)

Respondent appears to contend that it is absolved from liability since it was not foreseeable that a motorist would negligently collide with its pole with such force as to cause it to fall upon plaintiff. However, in order to prevent an intervening act from being a superseding cause which will relieve the defendant of responsibility for his negligence, the law does not inevitably require that the precise act be foreseeable. Numerous cases have declared that if the defendant’s conduct exposes persons in the class to which plaintiff belongs to a foreseeable risk of injury, and his act or omission contributes substantially to injury of that nature actually occurring, he may be held liable notwithstanding the fact that an unforeseeable independent intervening act is a con*685curring cause. (Prosser on Torts, pp. 369-372, and cases cited; Sandel v. State, 115 S.C. 168 [104 S.E. 569, 13 A.L.R. 1268].) As the Supreme Court stated in Taylor v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 17 Cal.2d 594, 602 [110 P.2d 1044], “the fact that neither party could reasonably anticipate the occurrence of the other concurrent cause will not shield him from liability so long as his own negligence was one of the causes of the injury. (Herron v. Smith Bros., Inc., 116 Cal.App. 518 [2 P.2d 1012]; Sawdey v. Producers’ Milk Co., 107 Cal.App. 467 [290 P. 684].)” (See, also, Rodriguez v. Savage Transportation Co., 77 Cal.App.2d 162, 168-169 [175 P.2d 37].)

The principle is recognized in section 435 of the Restatement of Torts: “If the actor’s conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about harm to another, the fact that the actor neither foresaw nor should have foreseen the extent of the harm or the manner in which it occurred does not prevent him from being liable.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, in Carroll v. Central Counties Gas Co., 74 Cal.App. 303 [240 P. 53], which also arose on demurrer, it appeared that the car in which plaintiff was riding went through the railing of a bridge and in falling struck and broke defendant’s gas pipe line which was suspended near the bridge, resulting in a fire from which plaintiff’s injuries were sustained. Deciding that the complaint presented a question of fact whether defendants had been negligent in the maintenance of its pipe line, the court rejected defendant’s contention that since the chain of events leading up to the accident was not foreseeable, it was not liable. It was held that if defendant could reasonably have foreseen that its conduct involved the likelihood of some danger to users of the highway, it would be liable, since its negligence was continuous to the time of the accident, and the type of injury which occurred was foreseeable and hence a natural and probable consequence of its wrongful act. Additional authorities applying the same rule include Johnson v. Kosmos Portland Cement Co.. (6 Cir.) 64 F.2d 193, explosive gases in empty oil barge exploded by a bolt of lightning; Mummaw v. Southwestern Telegraph & Telephone Co., (Mo.App.) 208 S.W. 476, rotten pole caused to fall by unforeseeable fire; Higgins v. Dewey. 107 Mass. 494 [9 Am.Rep. 63], negligently guarded fire caused to spread in unforeseeable manner; Munsey v. Webb, 231 U.S. 150 [34 S.Ct. 44, 58 L.Ed. 162], passenger unforeseeably collapses with head protruding from unguarded open elevator door; Dalton v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 241 Mass. 400 [135 N.E. 318], plaintiff injured *686by awning negligently left over street and thereafter pulled down by unforeseeable third party; Moore v. Townsend, 76 Minn. 64 [78 N.W. 880], ladder blown down by unusually strong wind; Derosier v. New England T. & T. Co., 81 N.H. 451 [130 A. 145], electrocution due to negligent maintenance of pole by defendant together with unforeseeable failure of traction company, which jointly occupied the pole, to insulate its equipment; McDowell v. Village of Preston, 104 Minn. 263 [116 N.W. 470, 18 L.R.A.N.S. 190], horse, frightened by unforeseeable raising of umbrella, running into structure negligently permitted in street by defendant; Washington & G. R. Co. v. Hickey, 166 U.S. 521 [17 S.Ct. 661, 41 L.Ed. 1101], unforeseeable closing of gates while defendant’s horsecar is negligently crossing railroad tracks; Elder v. Lykens Val. Coal Co., 157 Pa. 490 [27 A. 545], refuse negligently thrown into stream carried on to plaintiff’s land by extraordinary flood; Salisbury v. Herchenroder, 106 Mass. 458 [8 Am.Rep. 354], sign negligently maintained over street in violation of ordinance blown down by gale of unforeseeable proportions; and Virginian Ry. Co. v. Staton, (4 Cir.) 84 F.2d 133, injury occurring in unforeseeable manner from negligently protruding railroad spike. It must be conceded, of course, that if the intervening act is reasonably foreseeable, its occurrence will not shield the defendant from liability, for under such circumstances his negligence consists of a failure to guard against the very hazard that the act will occur. (Rest., Torts, § 449, and comment a.) On the othej, hand, as we have seen, it may not be safely assumed that the unforeseeability of the intervening agency is always a reliable criterion of nonliability.

Although language found in some of the California cases which discuss concurrent causes may not be entirely reconcilable with the views here expressed, we are satisfied that the decisions themselves are not in conflict with the principles we have stated. Without unduly extending this opinion we may say that the facts alleged in the present case distinguish it from cases where the intervening act was committed either deliberately or with knowledge of the existing danger (Polloni v. Ryland, 28 Cal.App. 51 [151 P. 296]; Loftus v. Dehail, 133 Cal. 214 [65 P. 379] ; Stultz v. Benson Lumber Co., 6 Cal.2d 688 [59 P.2d 100] ; Catlin v. Union Oil Co., 31 Cal.App. 597 [161 P. 29]; Newman v. Steuernagel, 132 Cal.App. 417 [22 P.2d 780] ; Hale v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 42 Cal.App. 55 [183 P. 280]. Cf., Katz v. Helbing, 205 Cal. 629, 636 [271 P. 1062, 62 A.L.R. 825]); and from cases where the defendant was *687simply not negligent, and the subsequent act was thus the sole proximate cause of the injury (Camp v. Peel, 33 Cal.App.2d 612 [92 P.2d 428] ; McMillan v. Thompson, 140 Cal.App. 437 [35 P.2d 419]).

Whether an intervening act is a concurrent cause or a superseding cause of the injury normally presents a question of fact. (Stockwell v. Board of Trustees, 64 Cal.App.2d 197, 205 [148 P.2d 405], and cases cited.) If the trier of fact in the present case were to find that a pole carefully maintained in sound condition would have broken under the impact of the collision, and that plaintiff’s injuries would thus have been sustained even though respondent had not been negligent, the latter’s breach of duty could not be regarded as a substantial cause. (Rest., Torts, § 432, subd. (1).) On the other hand, if it were found that a sound pole would not have broken, and that harm to plaintiff would thus have been prevented by careful maintenance, respondent’s omission could be considered & substantial concurring cause. (Carpenter, 20 Cal.L.Rev. 396-397; 38 Am.Jur., §54, p. 701, §64, p. 716.) As said in Keller v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., supra, 2 Cal.App.2d 513, 519, which involved a strikingly similar factual situation, “it is a proper question to submit to the jury as to whether the pole would have broken as a result of the blow received from the automobile under the circumstances of this case, if it had been reasonably sound throughout.”

As we have seen, the allegations of the complaint were broad enough to admit of proof from which it could be found that respondent should have reasonably anticipated that its defective pole would be caused to fall and injure passing individuals such as plaintiff, either of its own weight, or by the forces of nature, or by the operation of any one of a number of other possible extraneous forces. If defendant failed to act as a reasonably prudent person to protect plaintiff and others from this hazard, it could be held liable for the injuries resulting from its occurrence. (See Mars v. Meadville Tel. Co., 344 Pa. 29 [23 A.2d 856], rotten pole caused to fall by cow bumping it.)

The judgment is reversed with directions to the trial court to overrule the demurrer.

Wood, J., and Vallée, J., concurred.

Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied May 25, 1950.