P&CTexasmedium
A windstorm (covered peril) blows down a fence, and a stray dog that enters through the opening bites a child. The insurer must determine whether to pay. Under the proximate cause doctrine, what is the most important question?
Was the windstorm the unbroken efficient cause that set the loss in motion?
BWas the dog bite a named peril under the policy?
CDid the insured take reasonable steps to repair the fence before the bite?
DIs animal liability excluded anywhere in the policy?
Why this is the answer
The proximate cause doctrine asks whether a covered peril was the efficient cause that set an unbroken chain of events in motion, with no new and independent cause intervening. Here that means asking whether the windstorm, by knocking down the fence, led to the child's injury in an unbroken chain, or whether the stray dog's entry is an independent intervening cause that breaks it. Asking whether a dog bite is a named peril uses the wrong frame, the insured's repair effort bears on negligence rather than causation, and whether an exclusion applies is a separate question from what caused the loss.
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