C.12 - Braking case
"Antonio is driving the Line 12 city bus in which several people are travelling; when he reaches the crossroads... he brakes hard and suddenly to avoid running over a pedestrian who is crossing the zebra crossing at that moment. Like all the passengers on board the bus, Benito, who was holding on to the upper rail, was pushed forward so that he came off the rail and hit another passenger, Casilda, who could not avoid falling to the ground and suffered slight bruises". Alleged academic.
Does Benito see himself as having no alternative?
I. From the facts described, it should be noted that Casilda suffers a push and a slight contusion, pushed by Benito, who in turn is thrown forward by Antonio when he brakes hard and abruptly.
II. We are asked to analyse the criminal liability for the push and bruises suffered by Casilda. Assuming that the facts are as they have been described, the following can be stated:
Benito lets go of the upper bar of the vehicle to which he was clinging during the journey, and is thrown forward. Casilda, in turn, is pushed forward by Benito's blow, and suffers contusions when she hits a hard object. The two are immersed in a process such as the bus journey, which can be said to be human in that they do not behave like mere animals, but display their volition to hold on or let go of the bar, stand up or sit down, look out of the window or at the ground.... However, in this process there comes a moment in which we cannot say that it is human, because both are subjected to an external factor, external to themselves, such as the force of inertia, which makes the moving body (the bus) tend to continue moving forward, despite the braking; and the stronger the braking, the greater the force that sends them off in the direction they were going. They cannot exert resistance - in other words, they cannot resist. In this relevant fragment of the event we are judging, Benito is a patient and not an agent, as he is subjected to a force (due to the braking) that he cannot resist and that pushes him forward. Casilda, likewise, is subjected to a force (due to the push) which she cannot resist and which pushes her forward until she is stopped by the collision with the seats. We can say that neither of them, at that moment and as far as the forward displacement is concerned, is carrying out a human process susceptible of self-control, so that the minimum and necessary factor of the theory of crime, that of human conduct, disappears. And, since Benito was holding on to the bar of the vehicle, we cannot hold him liable for having caused his loss of self-control. Therefore, this is the end of the case for Benito, who is not manager because he lacks the basic requirement of conduct.
As far as the driver is concerned, Antonio, on the other hand, clearly engages in human conduct capable of self-control by braking the bus, as it is a reaction to a factor that he clearly perceives and precisely avoids. Antonio does engage in human conduct as a human process susceptible to self-control, and could be responsible for Casilda's suffering, were it not for the fact that the braking was a way of avoiding running over a pedestrian, topic which requires knowledge of other categories of crime theory which we will deal with later, such as objective criminality, state of necessity and omission.
III. Conclusion: Benito cannot be held liable for the wrongs suffered by Casilda. As for Antonio, his liability will depend on what is determined in the criminal law.
As can be seen, the effect of inertia on the passenger makes all possibilities of self-control disappear at that precise moment, so that it is not possible to speak of human conduct. At the moment of the injury to a legal good, the subject lacks the minimum of self-control that would allow one to speak of human conduct, so that the ordinary imputation of the process as conduct is not possible. Just as in C.11 the blinding sunlight falls on the driver of the vehicle and the eyelids close reflexively, in this case an irresistible force is at work on the passenger. In C.11 the driver would be liable because she closed her eyes without any volition and continued to drive with self-control, whereas in C .12 she was propelled forward without volition and hit without self-control.
Moreover, in C.12 the question of the possible liability of the agent for prior acts (whether or not he held on to the vehicle's bar) was raised, which we have easily rejected. However, in some cases imputation of what happened is possible: this is a manifestation of imputation by extraordinary means. Specifically, by means of the imputation structure known as actio libera in causa. Let us see this in C.13, where other questions are also raised.