Editing Proximate cause (section)

==Controversy==
The doctrine of proximate cause is notoriously confusing.  The doctrine is phrased in the language of causation, but in most of the cases in which proximate cause is actively litigated, there is not much real dispute that the defendant but-for caused the plaintiff's injury.  The doctrine is actually used by judges in a somewhat arbitrary fashion to limit the scope of the defendant's liability to a subset of the total class of potential plaintiffs who may have suffered some harm from the defendant's actions.<ref>''PPG Indus., Inc. v. Transamerica Ins. Co.'', 20 Cal. 4th 310, 316 (1999).</ref>

For example, in the two famous ''Kinsman Transit'' cases from the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|2nd Circuit]] (exercising [[admiralty law|admiralty]] jurisdiction over a [[New York (state)|New York]] incident), it was clear that mooring a boat improperly could lead to the risk of that boat drifting away and crashing into another boat, and that both boats could crash into a bridge, which collapsed and blocked the river, and in turn, the wreckage could flood the land adjacent to the river, as well as prevent any traffic from traversing the river until it had been cleared.  But under proximate cause, the property owners adjacent to the river could [[lawsuit|sue]] (''Kinsman I''), but not the owners of the boats or cargoes which could not move until the river was reopened (''Kinsman II'').<ref>See ''In re Kinsman Transit Co.'', 338 F.2d 708 (2nd Cir. 1964) and ''Kinsman Transit Co. v. City of Buffalo'', 388 F.2d 821 (2nd Cir. 1968).</ref>

Therefore, in the final version of the ''Restatement (Third), Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm'', published in 2010, the [[American Law Institute]] argued that proximate cause should be replaced with scope of liability.  Chapter 6 of the Restatement is titled "Scope of Liability (Proximate Cause)." It begins with a special note explaining the institute's decision to reframe the concept in terms of "scope of liability" because it does not involve true causation, and to also include "proximate cause" in the chapter title in parentheses to help judges and lawyers understand the connection between the old and new terminology. The Institute added that it "fervently hopes" the parenthetical will be unnecessary in a future fourth Restatement of Torts.<ref>{{cite book|last1=American Law Institute|title=Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm|date=2010|publisher=American Law Institute Publishers|location=St. Paul|isbn=9780314801340|pages=492–493}}</ref>