The answer to yesterday's question was "danger zone." Thank you, Top Gun, for embedding that phrase into my head. Turns out that's a technical term in tort law.
In Palsgraf, a man ran to catch a train that was already in motion (insert several iconic scenes and dozens of cliched scenes here), and jumped onboard. He seemed like he was about to fall, so two guards reached out to steady him. In the process, the package he was carrying, which was covered in newspaper, fell onto the rails below.
That package contained fireworks, although nothing about the packaging indicated as much. Fireworks, as they are prone to do, exploded, and some scales on the other end of the railroad platform fell, injuring the plaintiff who was standing on the platform.
The issue: did the railroad company have a duty to protect the plaintiff from this sort of an occurence?
The court said they didn't, because it was outside of the foreseeable zone of risk, in other words, the danger zone. The guards had no way of knowing that the package contained fireworks, or that it would explode upon impact with the ground, causing the sort of harm that was caused. So there wasn't a case against them.
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