If the Dam Breaks Open Many Years Too Soon

It's practice problems like the following one that make studying for the bar exam tolerable.

(Feel free to submit your own answers in the comments.)

A law enforcement officer was transporting a prisoner on a plane to testify in a criminal case. Unknown to those on the plane, an assassin hired to kill the prisoner had bribed an airport baggage handler to sneak a timed-release crate of poisonous snakes into the cargo hold of the plane.

Once the crate was triggered to open, the snakes were able to slither into the passenger compartment through gaps in the conduits between the cargo hold and the passenger compartment. In the ensuing panic caused by the snakes, the officer was struck in the head by a fire extinguisher that another passenger threw at a snake, and suffered a severe concussion.

The officer filed suit against numerous parties, including the person who designed the conduit system on that type of plane. At trial, evidence established that the design for the conduit system that he used had been rejected in the industry because of the danger of pressure loss between the cargo hold and the passenger compartment. An industry-approved design that the designer could have used would have kept the snakes from getting into the passenger compartment of the plane.

As between the officer and the designer, which party is likely to prevail?

A) The officer, because the designer is strictly liable for designing the conduit system of the plane.

B) The officer, because of the high degree of care owed to passengers of a common carrier.

C) The designer, because the assassin's actions were an unforeseeable intervening force.

D) The designer, because the officer was injured by another passenger rather than a snake.

Any requests for assistance should be directed to the man pictured below: