Court case(1773) 2 Wm Bl 892

On the evening of a fair day, the defendant Shepherd threw a lighted squib, made of gunpowder, into a crowded market house. It fell on the standing (stall) of one Yates, who sold gingerbread. To prevent injury to himself and his goods, one Willis instantly picked it up and threw it across the market house; it fell on the stall of one Ryal, who, to save his own goods, in turn picked it up and threw it to another part of the market house. There it struck the plaintiff, a boy, in the face, and burst, putting out one of his eyes. The plaintiff brought an action of trespass and assault against Shepherd.

The Court of Common Pleas held, by a majority (De Grey CJ, Gould J and Nares J; Blackstone J dissenting), that the action of trespass lay against Shepherd. The throwing of the squib was an unlawful and mischievous act, and Shepherd was answerable for all its consequences, as the original wrongdoer. Willis and Ryal were not free agents: they acted under a compulsive necessity for their own safety and self-preservation, and their throws did not break the chain of causation between Shepherd's act and the injury. The injury was therefore the immediate result of the original act. Blackstone J thought the injury consequential, so that the proper remedy was an action on the case, not trespass.