A driver negligently blocks a traffic lane; twenty minutes later an unrelated drunk driver strikes the stopped car. The drunk driver's conduct is best described as:
Explanation
An intervening cause is a new and independent act arising after the original negligence; when it is unforeseeable it supersedes that negligence and breaks the chain of proximate cause, ending the first party's liability. Vicarious liability fails here because the two drivers share no employment or agency relationship. Res ipsa loquitur is an evidentiary inference drawn from how an accident happened, not a causation doctrine.
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