What is Causation, Proximate Cause or Legal Cause of Personal Injury?
The third component of a personal injury tort is causation, proximate cause or legal cause. The four components of a legal tort in personal injury or other tort is a duty, breach, cause or causation and damages. We will only summarily the role of causation in a tort.
After a plaintiff shows that there is a legal duty or statute or law that the defendant must comply with and that the defendant?s acts or omissions breached this legal duty standard then, there is a question of whether or not the defendant?s acts or omissions actually, proximately and directly or indirectly caused damages to the Plaintiff. The question of legal causation is one for a trier of fact, either a judge or jury but the extent of such causation may be limited by the court as a rule of law.
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Causation, Proximate Cause and Legal Cause.
There are two types of causation. The first type is cause in fact and the second is proximate cause or legal cause. Both types of causation must be found to hold the defendant liable for defendant?s acts or omissions.
Cause in fact is the factually based answer to the causation question. It uses the ?but for? question to determine whether the defendant?s acts or omissions caused damage to the plaintiff. Here are some examples of the but for question. But for the defendant doctor removing defendant?s wrong leg, would the defendant have received damages. Or, but for the defendant doctor leaving a scalpel in the patient after surgery, would the defendant have suffered damages. It is clear from the facts of these two examples that the defendant?s acts or omissions caused damages to the plaintiff because ?but for? such acts or omissions, the defendant would not have suffered any damages.
Legal or proximate cause is the court?s interpretation of whether or not the defendant?s acts or omissions amounted to causation so as to make the defendant liable in tort or, as in our examples, liable in medical malpractice. A causal nexus of the acts or omissions to the damages may help to determine liability. It limits liability by ?proximate cause?. It brings in the concept of necessary cause.
Proximate cause has more to do with proximate and foreseeable cause of the defendant?s acts or omissions to plaintiff?s damages. The common question is how foreseeable is it that the defendant?s acts or omissions caused plaintiff?s damages.
Proximate cause also has to do with multiple tort feasors who acted simultaneously or so close in time, that the court may need to determine legal liability or extent thereof on each tort feasor. Some examples may help to clear legal causation.
Legal or proximate cause foreseeability. Is it foreseeable that the plaintiff would suffer medical malpractice damages by the defendant doctor?s act of removing the defendant?s wrong leg. Here, there is not much question as to foreseeability. The act meets the but for test, it meets the foreseeability or proximate cause test and thus the defendant doctor is liable in medical malpractice. Let?s extend the causation and foreseeability test.
We will use the same facts as above. If the now one-legged defendant comes home and while recuperating goes to another?s doctor?s office slips and falls on negligently designed stairs at that other doctor?s office, is the first doctor liable under the foreseeability test? Here, it is clear that such damage is not foreseeable from the first doctor?s act or removing the defendant?s wrong leg.
But, the result may be different with different circumstances. If the defendant suffers a septic blood infection because the doctor negligently sealed the wound, then is there enough causation for damages not only for the removal of the wrong leg but also the septic infection. Here, the act is foreseeable that if the defendant doctor was not negligent in sealing the wound, then the plaintiff would not have suffered septic.
Many times legal causation or foreseeability questions occur with multi-tortfeasors. The question becomes do the bad actors share liability. If the first doctor who negligently removed the defendant?s leg caused the plaintiff to have a blood clot in his brain and the doctor administering anesthesia and drugs gave the defendant so much anti-coagulant that it caused the defendant to bleed profusely and cause brain damage then how do both defendant doctors share liability.
You can make arguments either way. The surgeon will argue that but for the anesthesiologists? negligence the patient would not have suffered brain damage. The anesthesiologist will argue that but for the surgeon?s negligence, the defendant would not have received the anticoagulant.
But what about legal causation or foreseeability when the tortfeasors acts are fairly separate. Plaintiff?s wife gives him poison in an amount to kill him. Afterward, plaintiff visits defendant?s mistress who then stabs defendant to death. Was the mistress?s act a superseding intervening cause that would release defendant?s wife from liability? Here, the burden of causation shifts to both defendants to prove they were not negligent or perhaps, jointly negligent. Or, were such acts combined causes that without the other act, the plaintiff would not have suffered damage. Perhaps wife?s poisoning of plaintiff was not enough to kill but weakened the plaintiff so much that he could not fight off mistress?s acts. What was the causal nexus?
What is the effect of an ?egg skull? plaintiff as to causation? For example, if defendant doctor gives plaintiff patient penicillin and plaintiff has an allergic reaction and dies, what effect, if any does such underlying condition have upon causation. The general rule of law is that defendant?s take plaintiffs as they are. In this case, the doctor is negligent for a few reasons one of which is that defendant doctor took plaintiff as plaintiff was. (Doctor is additionally negligent for not asking plaintiff of any pre-existing allergies.
It is clear that causation is something that lawyers will argue. It is a bit clearer to see the ?but for? test as it is more of a factual test without much foreseeability function. However, legal causation or proximate causation in more factually complicated cases is not as clear as to whether or not a certain defendant?s acts or omissions caused damages to the plaintiff.
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