326
Thomas, J., dissenting
damage; the loss must be the direct result of, or proximately traceable to, the breach of an obligation owing to the plaintiff" (emphasis added)).
This Court has been less than clear with respect to the requirements for establishing proximate cause. In the past, the Court has applied the term " 'proximate cause' to label generically the judicial tools used to limit a person's responsibility for the consequences of that person's own acts." Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U. S. 258, 268 (1992). The Court has explained that, "[a]t bottom, the notion of proximate cause reflects 'ideas of what justice demands, or of what is administratively possible and convenient.' " Ibid. (quoting W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 41, p. 264 (5th ed. 1984) (hereinafter Keeton)); see also Palsgraf v. Long Island R. R. Co., 248 N. Y. 339, 352, 162 N. E. 99, 103 (1928) (Andrews, J., dissenting) ("What we do mean by the word 'proximate' is, that because of convenience, of public policy, of a rough sense of justice, the law arbitrarily declines to trace a series of events beyond a certain point"). While the concept of proximate cause is somewhat amorphous, see Keeton 279, the common law is clear that certain intervening events—otherwise called "superseding causes"—are sufficient to sever the causal nexus and cut off all liability. See Exxon Co., U. S. A. v. Sofec, Inc., 517 U. S. 830, 837 (1996) (" 'The doctrine of superseding cause is . . . applied where the defendant's negligence in fact substantially contributed to the plaintiff's injury, but the injury was actually brought about by a later cause of independent origin that was not foreseeable' " (quoting 1 T. Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Law § 5-3, pp. 165-166 (2d ed. 1994))); 57A Am. Jur. 2d, Negligence § 790, p. 701 (1989) ("The intervention, between the negligence of the defendant and the occurrence of an injury to the plaintiff, of a new, independent, and efficient cause, or of a superseding cause, of the injury renders the negligence of the defendant a remote cause of
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