What a Scriba brief
actually looks like.

A railroad guard, helping a passenger board a moving train, dislodged a package the passenger was carrying. The package contained fireworks. It fell, exploded, and (the plaintiff alleged) caused scales at the far end of the platform to fall on Helen Palsgraf. Palsgraf sued the railroad in negligence.

Does a defendant owe a duty of care to a plaintiff whose injury was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the defendant's conduct?

Negligence is not actionable unless it involves the invasion of a legally protected interest, the violation of a right. Duty is owed only to those within the zone of reasonably foreseeable harm from the defendant's conduct (Cardozo, majority).

The conduct of the guard, if wrongful at all, was a wrong only to the passenger with the package — not to Palsgraf, standing far away. There was nothing in the situation to suggest to even the most cautious mind that the parcel wrapped in newspaper would spread wreckage through the station. Because Palsgraf was outside the zone of foreseeable danger, the railroad owed her no duty, and without a duty there can be no negligence liability.

Judgment for the plaintiff reversed. A defendant is liable in negligence only to plaintiffs within the reasonably foreseeable zone of danger.

The Hadleys operated a mill whose crankshaft broke, forcing them to shut down. They hired Baxendale, a common carrier, to transport the broken shaft to a manufacturer to serve as a model for a replacement. Baxendale's employees negligently delayed delivery, and the mill remained closed longer than expected. The Hadleys sued for lost profits during the delay.

What damages are recoverable for breach of contract when the breach causes consequential losses not obvious from the contract itself?

Damages for breach of contract are limited to those that (1) arise naturally, according to the usual course of things, from the breach, or (2) were reasonably in the contemplation of both parties at the time of contracting as a probable result of a breach.

Lost profits from a mill shutdown are not the natural, ordinary consequence of a delayed shipment of a crankshaft — a mill might have a spare, or it might be closed for other reasons. And the Hadleys had not communicated the special circumstance (that the mill was fully stopped and awaiting this exact part) to Baxendale at the time of the contract. Because the special circumstances were not communicated, Baxendale could not have contemplated the lost profits as a probable result of a delay.

New trial ordered. Lost profits were not recoverable because they were not a natural consequence of the breach and had not been contemplated by both parties at contracting.

William Marbury was appointed a justice of the peace by outgoing President Adams, but his commission was not delivered before the new Jefferson administration took office. Secretary of State James Madison refused to deliver it. Marbury sued directly in the Supreme Court seeking a writ of mandamus under § 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which purported to give the Court original jurisdiction to issue such writs.

Whether Congress may expand the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction beyond that specified in Article III, and if not, what the courts must do when a statute conflicts with the Constitution.

A statute repugnant to the Constitution is void. It is emphatically the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is; when two laws conflict, the court must decide on the operation of each, and if one is the Constitution and the other an ordinary act of Congress, the Constitution controls.

Article III specifies the categories of cases in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction; Marbury's case is not among them. Section 13 of the Judiciary Act, by purporting to grant original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus in cases like Marbury's, expanded the Court's original jurisdiction beyond the Constitution's text. The Court cannot enforce an unconstitutional statute. Judges take an oath to support the Constitution; giving effect to an act repugnant to it would violate that oath and the very foundation of a written constitution.

Marbury had a right to the commission, but the Court could not issue mandamus because § 13 of the Judiciary Act was unconstitutional insofar as it expanded original jurisdiction. Application dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Established judicial review of federal legislation.