Requiring proof of negligence shifted accident losses onto injured plaintiffs.

Evidence

But adoption of the negligence standard also made it more difficult for plaintiffs to secure redress for injuries. They had to prove not only that the defendant’s actions injured them but also that the defendant had acted negligently. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes summed it up, “The general principle of our law is that loss from accident must lie where it falls, and that principle is not affected by the fact that a human being is the instrument of misfortune.” — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3405

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: how a seemingly neutral procedural rule (burden of proving negligence) quietly redistributes loss from industry to individuals — a case study in how doctrine encodes distributive choices.
• SHARE: The Holmes line ‘loss from accident must lie where it falls’ is a quotable tidbit for anyone into legal history or tort law.
• XREF: Holmes’s accident-loss principle connects to the law-and-economics literature on cheapest cost avoiders and loss spreading.