Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/113

85 RECOVERY FOR CONSEQUENCES OF AN ACT. 85 us, or in the language of Bishop^ has "exhausted itself" like a spent cartridge, it can be followed no further. Any later com- bination of circumstances to which it may contribute in some degree is too remote from the defendant to be chargeable to him.^ Thus where A gave to B (an innocent party) poison to be ad- ministered to C, and B put the poison on a shelf in C's sick-room, where D found it and gave it to C, A is properly chargeable with the administration of it to C. But if B had thrown it on a dust-heap, where E a year afterward had found it and innocently administered it to C, the force of A's act would have been spent before E found the poison, and A would not have been chargeable with the ad- ministration to C. ^ A drove B out of a house on a freezing night, and B was frozen ; A is responsible only if his force was still active at the time of B's combination with the cold. If B might have found shelter elsewhere, A's act of thrusting B into the cold ceased to be an active agency in keeping him in it ; if B chose to stay outside, A's connection with B's subsequent exposure is remote.* A knocked B down and was about to renew the attack ; B drew his dagger to defend himself; A, in his haste to kill B, stumbled, fell upon the dagger, and was killed. This was not homicide by B se defendendo; A alone was chargeable with his own death.^ The appellee, having succeeded in an appeal of robbery, alleged as an item of damage that he had been shut up in prison for a long time, by reason of the failure of the justices to deliver the jail at the proper time. But it was held that the long imprisonment was chargeable to the justices alone, not to the appellor; and the damages were not allowed.^ 1 Non-Contract Law, § 44. 2 Conceivably, of course, we might resolve every act of injury into its ultimate human forces, and charge each person who had set one of these forces in motion with his share of the act of injury. This would take us back to Adam in every case. Human knowledge is too small to perform such a task with justice, and time too short for the determination by this method of a single case. For their own protection, and for the security of the public at large, the courts refuse to go so far ; beyond a certain point the operation of a force is called remote, and is disregarded. Fleming v. Beck, 48 Pa. 309, 313; Squire v. W. U. Tel. Co., 98 Mass. 232, 237. « See Reg. v. Michael, 2 Moo. C. C. 120, 9 C. & P. 356, Beale Cas. Crim. L. 378- See also to the same effect Carter v. Towne, 103 Mass. 507, with which compare an earlier report of the same case, 98 Mass. 567. ^ 44 E. 3, 44, pi. 55. See also Hilton's Case, 2 Lew. 214; Reg. v. West, 2 Cox C. C. 500 ; Reg. v. Bennett, Bell C. C. i, 28 L. J. M. C. 27 ; Reg. v. Ledger, 2 F. & F. 857. <* 42 Ass. pi. 19.
 * Hendrickson v. Com., 85 Ky. 281, Beale Cas. Crim. L. 430.