William Hall Paxton McClenahan, Plaintiff-Appellant v. Glenn A. Cooley, Defendant-Appellee

Summary

The court held that leaving keys in an unattended automobile parked on private property accessible to the public may support common-law negligence and that the resulting issues of proximate cause and superseding intervening cause ordinarily belong to the jury. It rejected the rule that the thief's criminal conduct automatically breaks the causal chain as a matter of law and reversed the judgment on the pleadings. The court remanded for further proceedings.