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answers as if reaction time could compensate
    for understanding.
    "In my opinion?" Dex asked.
    "I am addressing you, Mr. Thaler. So, yes, I am asking for your
    opinion."
    "I would have to say yes, the plaintiff should have been allowed
    recovery. I agree with Justice Andrew's dissent."
    "Ohhhh, really?" Zigman's voice was high and nasal.
    "Yes. Really."
    I was surprised by his answer, as he had told me just before class
    that he didn't realize crack cocaine had been around in 1928, but
    Justice Andrews surely must have been smoking it when he wrote
    his dissent. I was even more surprised by Dexter's brazen "really"
    tagged onto the end of his answer, as though to taunt Zigman.
    Zigman's scrawny chest swelled visibly. "So you think that the
    guard should have foreseen that the innocuous package measuring fifteen inches in length, covered with a newspaper,
    contained explosives and would cause injury to the plaintiff?"
    "It was certainly a possibility."
    "Should he have foreseen that the package could cause injury to
    anybody in the world?" Zigman asked, with mounting sarcasm.
    "I didn't say 'anybody in the world.' I said 'the plaintiff.'
    Mrs. Palsgraf,
    in my opinion, was in the danger zone."
    Zigman approached our row with ramrod posture and tossed his
    Wall Street Journal onto Dex's closed textbook.
    "Care to return my newspaper?"
    "I'd prefer not to," Dex said.
    The shock in the room was palpable. The rest of us would have
    simply played along and returned the paper, mere props in
    Zigman's questioning.
    "You'd prefer not to?" Zigman cocked his head.
    "That's correct. There could be dynamite wrapped inside it."
    Half of the class gasped, the other half snickered.
    Clearly, Zigman
    had some tactic up his sleeve, some way of turning the facts
    around on Dex. But Dex wasn't falling for it. Zigman was visibly
    frustrated.
    "Well, let's suppose you did choose to return it to me and it did
    contain a stick of dynamite and it did cause injury to your person.
    Then what, Mr. Thaler?"
    "Then I would sue you, and likely I would win."
    "And would that recovery be consistent with Judge Cardozo's
    rationale in the majority holding?"
    "No. It would not."
    "Oh, really? And why not?"
    "Because I'd sue you for an intentional tort, and Cardozo was
    talking about negligence, was he not?" Dex raised his voice to
    match Zigman's.
    I think I stopped breathing as Zigman pressed his palms together
    and brought them neatly against his chest as though he were
    praying. "I ask the questions in this classroom. If that's all right
    with you, Mr. Thaler?"
    Dex shrugged as if to say, have it your way, makes no difference to
    me.
    "Well, let's suppose that I accidentally dropped my paper onto
    your desk, and you returned it and were injured. Would Mr.
    Cardozo allow you full recovery?"
    "Sure."
    "And why is that?"
    Dex sighed to show that the exercise was boring him and then said
    swiftly and clearly, "Because it was entirely foreseeable that the
    dynamite could cause injury to me. Your dropping the paper
    containing dynamite into my personal space violated my legally
    protected interest. Your negligent act caused a hazard apparent to
    the eye of ordinary vigilance."
    I studied the highlighted portions of my book. Dex was quoting
    sections of Cardozo's opinion verbatim, without so much as
    glancing at his book or notes. The whole class was spellbound nobody did this well, and certainly not with Zigman
    looming over him.
    "And if Ms. Myers sued," Zigman said, pointing to a trembling
    Julie
    Myers on the other side of the classroom, his victim from the day
    before. "Should she be allowed recovery?"
    "Under Cardozo's holding or Justice Andrews's dissent?"
    "The latter. As it is the opinion you share."
    "Yes. Everyone owes to the world at large the duty of refraining
    from acts which unreasonably threaten the safety of others," Dex
    said, another straight quote from the dissent.
    It went on like that for the rest of the hour, Dex distinguishing
    nuances in