Jones v. Robbins: The Rhyme and Reason of Duty-Risk

• Author: Thomas E. Richard
• Position: Clyde C. Tidwell Endowed Professor of Law, Southern University Law Center
• Pages: 839-845

Jones v. Robbins: The Rhyme and Reason of Duty–

Risk

Thomas E. Richard

∗

We start with Leon’s1 learned books2

That prompted Wex3 to take a look4

At negligence analysis,

And what we know as duty–risk.5

The teachings of these pedagogues

Spawned David6 and his Dialogues7

Copyright 2014, by THOMAS E. RICHARD.

∗ Clyde C. Tidwell Endowed Professor of Law, Southern University Law

Center. The author greatly appreciates the kind support and encouragement of

Hodge O’Neal, III of the Monroe, Louisiana Bar, Professor Paul R. Baier of the

Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center, and Professor Baier’s

wife, Barbara Baier, of the Baton Rouge, Louisiana Bar who read an earlier draft

of this work.

1. Leon A. Green (1888–1979), late Professor of Law, University of

Texas, and former Dean, Northwestern University School of Law, is the creative

force behind the dut y–risk analysis.

2. See generally LEON GREEN, RATIONALE OF PROXIMATE CAUSE (1927);

LEON GREEN, JUDGE AND JURY (1930); LEON GREEN, THE JUDICIAL PROCESS IN

TORT CASES (1931).

3. Wex S. Malone (1906–1986), late Boyd Professor of Law, Louisiana

State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center, espoused and refined the duty–risk

analysis and enriched the lives of his torts students through his instruction.

4. By letter dated January 13, 1936, to Leon Green, a copy of which is in

the author’s possession, Wex Malone, a young torts professor at the University

of Mississippi, acknowledged having met Leon Green at the 1936 Association of

American Law Schools meeting in New Orleans and expressed a desire to adopt

Green’s casebook for use in his torts class.

5. Leon Green’s method of negligence analysis utilizes cause in fact, duty,

scope of duty, breach, and damages to eliminate the obfuscatory language of

proximate cause. James M. Treece, Leon Green and the Judicial Process:

Government of the People, by the People, and for the People, 56 TEX. L. REV.

447, 459 (1978); William L. Crowe, Sr., The Anatomy of a Tort—Greenian, as

Interpreted by Crowe Who Has Been Influenced by Malone—A Primer, 22 LOY.

L. REV. 903–06, 912, 916 (1976), reprinted in William L. Crowe, Sr., The

Anatomy of a Tort—Greenian, as Interpreted by Crowe Who Has Been

Influenced by Malone—A Primer, 44 LOY. L. REV. 647 (1999); Leon Green, The

Causal Relation Issue in Negligence Law, 60 MICH. L. REV. 543, 546 (1962).

6. David W. Robertson, W. Page Keeton Chair in Tort Law, University

Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Texas School of Law, is a

former student of Wex Malone, a former colleague of Leon Green, and a

renowned torts scholar in his own right.

7. David W. Robertson, Reason Versus Rule in Louisiana Tort Law:

Dialogues on Hill v. Lundin & Associates, Inc., 34 LA. L. REV. 1 (1973).