There is a guy and he plans this big party at his house. During the party some people sat on the roof eating popcorn etc. Suddenly a guy accidently pushes this expensive glass bowl off the roof tumbling towards the cement below.

Menwhile there is another group of guys standing on the cement practicing thier batting swings. Suddenly a bowl falls off the roof, and one of the guys practicing his batting accidently swings his bat and hits the bowl totally breaking it.

These two guys go to court. The guy from the roof says the guy batting should pay for the damages because he actually broke the bowl. The guy batting says the guy from the roof should pay for the bowl because it would have broken anyways because of the guy on the roof if he had done nothing. The guy batting said he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

If this was a court case who would win?

The loser is the guy on the roof. It is not reasonably forseeable that a man swinging a baseball bat is going to break a glass bowl falling though the air (or any other falling object, come to that ). It follows that the man with the bat is not liable in negligence.

By contrast, it is utterly forseeable that someone knocking a glass bowl off a roof is going to break the bowl. The fact that there is a novus actus interveniens [ I just have to get the lawyers' Latin in to justify the fee ] that breaks the bowl before it meets its predictable destruction is neither here nor there

Neither. The owner did not perform due care to protect his own property from the likely event someone at a party would knock it from a precarious position. If it were me, I would tell him to grow a brain cell and be more careful next time.

I say the idiot on the roof is responsible. Frankly everyone involved should be glad the bowl didn't fall off the roof and hit someone on the head, killing them.

We could be talking about a wrongful death lawsuit rather than a broken bowl.

If this is a real life situation, tell the knucklehead on the roof to pay for the bowl and don't invite him to any more parties.

C'mon Mx2 . Play the game ! On your version there'd be nobody to sue. Now where's the fun (and the money) in that ?

I leave aside the question,taking your ruling as right, of whether the owner might be refused by his household insurers on the grounds (1) that the claim was excluded as the loss was not occasioned by a normal domestic risk and/or (2) the owner was negligent and the policy excludes claims arising from the insured's own negligence towards his own insured property. Then there'd be the insurers to sue (YAY! ).

Well if I host a party where popcorn is being served that tells me it is NOT a formal party and would therefore not require the expensive crystal bowls, The plastic ones would work best, even the stainless steel mixing bowls would work.

If I were the judge here, I would hold the owner responsible. The owner showed extraordinary negligence by allowing his fine crystal out of the house onto the roof.

To me suing either the man on the roof or the man with the baseball bat is like the lady who sued Mc Donald's for spilling hot coffee in her lap. There are some obviousities in the world: Coffee is hot, Fine crystal is not used to serve popcorn in on the roof or otherwise, CLumsy party goers should not be allowed access to the roof.