Legal Definitions - legal cause

Legal cause, often referred to as proximate cause, is a fundamental concept in law that determines whether a particular action or inaction is sufficiently connected to a resulting injury or harm to justify imposing legal responsibility.

It involves two main considerations:

• First, the harm would not have occurred but for the defendant's action or failure to act. This establishes a direct link in the chain of events.
• Second, the harm must have been a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the defendant's conduct. This means that a reasonable person in the defendant's position should have been able to anticipate that their actions could lead to such a result.

Courts also consider whether the connection between the defendant's conduct and the ultimate harm is too remote or indirect to fairly hold them accountable. Even if an action starts a chain of events, if the final outcome is highly unusual or caused by an unexpected intervening event, it might not be considered a legal cause.

Here are some examples to illustrate legal cause:

• Example 1: Negligent Driving

  A driver, distracted by their phone, swerves into another lane without signaling and collides with a car that was driving lawfully. The driver of the lawfully operating car suffers whiplash and requires medical treatment.

  Explanation: The distracted driver's negligence (swerving without signaling while distracted) is the legal cause of the other driver's injuries. The collision and subsequent injuries would not have occurred "but for" the distracted driver's actions, and it is highly foreseeable that negligent driving can lead to accidents and injuries.

• Example 2: Unsafe Property Conditions

  A grocery store manager is aware of a persistent leak in the roof that causes a puddle to form in an aisle, but fails to place a "wet floor" sign or clean up the spill for several hours. A customer slips on the puddle, falls, and breaks their wrist.

  Explanation: The store manager's failure to address the known hazard (the puddle) is the legal cause of the customer's broken wrist. The injury would not have happened "but for" the store's negligence, and it is entirely foreseeable that an unmarked, wet floor in a public space could lead to someone slipping and getting hurt.

• Example 3: Remoteness and Intervening Events

  A homeowner leaves their garden hose running, causing water to flood their driveway and spill onto the public sidewalk. A pedestrian walking by sees the water, tries to avoid it by stepping onto the grassy verge, but then unexpectedly trips over a hidden tree root and sprains their ankle.

  Explanation: While the homeowner's running hose caused the water on the sidewalk, it is unlikely to be considered the legal cause of the pedestrian's sprained ankle. The injury was not a direct or reasonably foreseeable consequence of the water itself. The hidden tree root was an unexpected, intervening factor that broke the chain of foreseeability from the homeowner's initial action. The connection between the running hose and the sprained ankle is too remote to impose liability on the homeowner for the ankle injury.