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As a general rule, negligence actions seeking damages for the suicide of another will not lie because the act of suicide is considered to be a deliberate, intentional and intervening act, which precludes a finding that a given defendant is, in fact, responsible for the harm.

Generally, “negligence actions seeking damages for the suicide of another will not lie because the act of suicide is considered a deliberate, intentional and intervening act which precludes a finding that a given defendant, in fact, is responsible for the harm.” McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 337 (1983); see WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL *603 DICTIONARY 2286 (unabridged ed. 2002) (suicide is “the act...

The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing the plaintiffs did not intend to offer expert testimony to support their negligence claim, and that the undisputed facts did not fall within the two recognized exceptions to the general rule articulated in McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 337 (1983), that precludes negligence actions for the suicide of another.

Witte v. Desmarais, 136 N.H. 178, 182, 614 A.2d 116, 117 (1992); see McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 340, 461 A.2d 123, 126 (1983).

The nexus between the State’s omission and the plaintiff’s harm is “simply too attenuated to impose legal liability on the part of the defendant.” McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 342, 461 A.2d 123, 127 (1983).

I. Negligence “As a general rule, negligence actions seeking damages for the suicide of another will not lie because the act of suicide is considered a deliberate, intentional and intervening act which precludes a finding that a given defendant, in fact, is responsible for the harm.” McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 337, 461 A.2d 123, 124 (1983).

We have acknowledged that “[a]s a general rule, negligence actions seeking damages for the suicide of another will not lie because the act of suicide is considered a deliberate, intentional and intervening act which precludes a finding that a given defendant, in fact, is responsible for the harm.” McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 337, 461 A.2d 123, 124 (1983).

W. Keeton, Prosser and Keeton on THE Law OF Torts § 42, at 274 (5th ed. 1984); McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 341-42, 461 A.2d 123, 127 (1983).

Whether a duty exists in a particular case depends on what risks, if any, are reasonably foreseeable.

Proximate causation requires a court to determine “ ‘whether the defendant should he legally liable for what he has caused....’” McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 341-42, 461 A.2d 123, 127 (1983) (quoting W. PROSSER, LAW OF TORTS § 42, at 244 (4th ed. 1971)) (emphasis added).

Given the existence of an attorney-client relationship, the law imposes a duty on the lawyer, see Guilarini v. Company, 98 N.H. 118, 119, 95 A.2d 784, 785 (1953) (relation of parties determines whether law imposes duty on one for benefit of the other), to exercise reasonable care and ordinary skill and knowledge in providing the legal services agreed upon.

This court recently had occasion to discuss, although we did not decide, this issue in McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 461 A.2d 123 (1983).

In McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 461 A.2d 123 (1983), we spoke of the common understanding of suicide as a deliberate and intentional act.

We applied this same type of balancing test in Libbey v. Hampton Water Works Co., 118 N.H. 500, 502-03, 389 A.2d 434, 435-36 (1978) (no liability for failure of a water company to provide sufficient pressure for fire fighting), and in McLaughlin v. Sullivan, 123 N.H. 335, 341-42, 461 A.2d 123, 127-28 (1983) (no liability for a suicide allegedly resulting from defendant’s legal malpractice), as well as in Corso itself.