In what circumstances will a defendant be held liable for a plaintiff's exposure to contaminated water?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Wardrop v. City of Manhattan Beach, 160 Cal.App.2d 779, 326 P.2d 15 (Cal. App. 1958):

In Stubbs v. City of Rochester, 226 N.Y. 516, 124 N.E. 137, 140, 5 A.L.R. 1396, plaintiff drank tap water and contracted typhoid fever. He offered evidence that dirty water from the Genessee River was entering the water lines, and that the water was 'oily and of unusual appearance'. The defense proved that typhoid fever could be due to drinking polluted water, eating raw fruits and vegetables fertilized by raw excrement, consumption of shell fish, infected milk and vegetables, personal contract with infected persons, and other causes known and unknown to medical authorities. Defendant argued that plaintiff must prove his injury was due in whole or in part to the cause for which it was responsible and that plaintiff should eliminate the other causes for which defendant was not responsible. The court rejected this contention, stating: 'If the argument should prevail and the rule of law stated is not subject to any limitation, the present case illustrates the impossibility of a recovery in any case based upon like facts. One cause of the disease is stated by counsel to be 'personal contact with typhoid carriers * * * whereby bacilli are received and accidentally transferred by the hands or some other portion of the person or clothes to the mouth.' * * * To prove the time when he was attacked with typhoid, [160 Cal.App.2d 794] then find every individual who traveled on the same car with him, and establish by each one of them that he or she was free from the disease even to his or her clothing is impossible * * * If two or more possible causes exist, for only one of which a defendant may be liable, and a party injured established facts from which it can be said with reasonable certainty that the direct cause of the injury was the one for which the defendant was liable, the party has complied with the spirit of the rule.'

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