Aikens v. Debow

(Filed Jan. 16, 2001)

The majority opinion demonstrates a classic struggle in the development of the common law: the battle between crafting remedies for people or businesses that are injured — even people or businesses injured in a purely economic sense — as a direct and proximate cause of a tortfeasor’s carelessness, and protecting litigants from random, unpredictable liability without limit.

I applaud the majority opinion’s bold step forward, and its recognition that a tortfeasor may owe a certain, clearly foreseeable party a duty of due care to avoid causing “an interruption in commerce”…