Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
E100412
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. is a landmark 1928 New York Court of Appeals case, authored by Judge Benjamin Cardozo, that established the modern American doctrine of proximate cause and foreseeability in negligence law.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. canonical | 2 |
| Palsgraf | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T841078 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
Target entity: Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. Context triple: [Benjamin N. Cardozo, notableWork, Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.]
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A.
Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott was a landmark federal court case from South Carolina challenging racial segregation in public schools, and it became one of the key cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education.
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B.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green is a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the key burden-shifting framework for proving employment discrimination under Title VII.
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C.
Carter v. Carter Coal Co.
Carter v. Carter Coal Co. was a 1936 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down federal regulation of coal production as an unconstitutional overreach of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers.
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D.
Gebhart v. Belton
Gebhart v. Belton was a landmark Delaware school segregation case whose rulings in favor of Black students became one of the four consolidated cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education, contributing to the Supreme Court’s rejection of “separate but equal” in public education.
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E.
Argersinger v. Hamlin
Argersinger v. Hamlin is a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that extended the right to counsel to defendants in misdemeanor cases that may result in imprisonment.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
Target entity: Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. Target entity description: Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. is a landmark 1928 New York Court of Appeals case, authored by Judge Benjamin Cardozo, that established the modern American doctrine of proximate cause and foreseeability in negligence law.
-
A.
Briggs v. Elliott
Briggs v. Elliott was a landmark federal court case from South Carolina challenging racial segregation in public schools, and it became one of the key cases consolidated into Brown v. Board of Education.
-
B.
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green
McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green is a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established the key burden-shifting framework for proving employment discrimination under Title VII.
-
C.
Carter v. Carter Coal Co.
Carter v. Carter Coal Co. was a 1936 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down federal regulation of coal production as an unconstitutional overreach of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers.
-
D.
Gebhart v. Belton
Gebhart v. Belton was a landmark Delaware school segregation case whose rulings in favor of Black students became one of the four consolidated cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education, contributing to the Supreme Court’s rejection of “separate but equal” in public education.
-
E.
Argersinger v. Hamlin
Argersinger v. Hamlin is a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that extended the right to counsel to defendants in misdemeanor cases that may result in imprisonment.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
court case
ⓘ
landmark case ⓘ negligence case ⓘ tort law case ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
negligence
ⓘ
tort law ⓘ |
| chiefJudgeAtTime |
Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo
ⓘ
surface form:
Benjamin N. Cardozo
|
| citation |
162 N.E. 99
ⓘ
248 N.Y. 339 ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | New York Court of Appeals ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1928-05-29 ⓘ |
| decisionYear | 1928 ⓘ |
| defendant |
Long Island Rail Road
ⓘ
surface form:
Long Island Railroad Company
|
| dissentingOpinionBy | William S. Andrews ⓘ |
| dissentingView | Liability should be based on whether the defendant’s act was a substantial factor in producing the injury, not on foreseeability of the particular plaintiff ⓘ |
| factSummary | Railroad guards helped a passenger board a moving train, causing a package of fireworks to fall, explode, and knock down scales that injured the plaintiff ⓘ |
| frequentlyCitedIn | U.S. tort law casebooks ⓘ |
| fullName | Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. self-link ⓘ |
| holding | The railroad owed no duty of care to the plaintiff with respect to the unforeseeable explosion and resulting injuries ⓘ |
| influenced |
American negligence law
ⓘ
Restatement (Second) of Torts ⓘ
surface form:
Restatement (Second) of Torts approach to duty and proximate cause
|
| issue | Whether the defendant railroad owed a duty of care to the plaintiff for injuries resulting from an unforeseeable chain of events ⓘ |
| judgeAuthoringMajorityOpinion |
Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo
ⓘ
surface form:
Benjamin N. Cardozo
|
| jurisdiction | New York ⓘ |
| keyConcept |
foreseeable plaintiff
ⓘ
proximate cause as limitation on liability ⓘ relational duty of care ⓘ zone of danger ⓘ |
| languageOfDecision | English ⓘ |
| legalDoctrine |
foreseeability
ⓘ
proximate cause ⓘ |
| legalPrincipleEstablished | duty of care is owed only to those in the reasonably foreseeable zone of danger ⓘ |
| legalSignificance |
Clarified distinction between duty and proximate cause in negligence analysis
ⓘ
Established foreseeability as a central test for duty in negligence ⓘ |
| locationOfIncident | Long Island Railroad station in New York ⓘ |
| majorityHolding | Negligence is not actionable unless it involves the invasion of a legally protected interest of the plaintiff within the range of apprehension ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy |
Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo
ⓘ
surface form:
Benjamin N. Cardozo
|
| partyTypeDefendant | railroad company ⓘ |
| partyTypePlaintiff | individual ⓘ |
| plaintiff | Helen Palsgraf ⓘ |
| proceduralPosture | Appeal from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff ⓘ |
| remedy | Complaint dismissed ⓘ |
| resultOnAppeal | Judgment for the plaintiff was reversed ⓘ |
| shortName |
Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Palsgraf
|
| stateCourt | New York ⓘ |
| taughtIn | first-year law school torts courses in the United States ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfIncident | early 1920s ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Subject: Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. Description of subject: Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. is a landmark 1928 New York Court of Appeals case, authored by Judge Benjamin Cardozo, that established the modern American doctrine of proximate cause and foreseeability in negligence law.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.