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In the law, a proximate cause is an event sufficiently related to a legally recognizable injury to be held the cause of that injury. There are two elements needed to determine proximate cause: the activity must produce a foreseeable risk, and the injury must be caused directly by the defendant's negligence. There may be more than one proximate cause of an injury or event. Image File history File links SmallLadyJustice. ...
In the common law, a tort is a civil wrong for which the law provides a remedy. ...
This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ...
An intentional tort is a category of torts that describes a civil wrong resulting from an intentional act on the part of the tortfeasor. ...
At common law, battery is the tort of intentionally (or in Australia negligently) and voluntarily touching another person without lawful excuse or justification. ...
False arrest is a common law tort, where a plaintiff alleges he or she was held in custody without reasonable cause or an order issued by a court of appropriate jurisdiction. ...
False Imprisonment is a common law tort, and possibly a misdemeanor crime, wherein a person is intentionally confined without legal authority. ...
Intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) is a common law tort claim for intentional conduct that results in extreme emotional distress. ...
Trespass to chattels is a tort whereby the infringing party has intentionally (or in Australia negligently) interfered with another persons lawful possession of a chattel. ...
Trespass to land is a common law tort that is committed when an individual intentionally (or in Australia negligently) enters the land of another without lawful excuse. ...
In law, conversion is a tort that deals with the wrongful interference with goods. ...
In tort law, detinue is an action for the wrongful detention of goods from an individual who has a greater right to immediate possession than the current possessor. ...
Trover signifies finding. ...
In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement that negatively affects someones reputation. ...
The right to privacy is the right to control information about yourself in two situations. ...
Abuse of process is a common law intentional tort. ...
Malicious prosecution is a common law intentional tort. ...
Bold text Tortious interference, in the common law of tort, occurs when a person intentionally damages the plaintiffs contractual or other business relationships. ...
Consent (as a term of jurisprudence) is a possible justification against civil or criminal liability. ...
In tort law, the defense of necessity is divided between private necessity (where a person commits a tort for the defense of his own property) and public necessity (where a person commits a tort for the public good, such as cutting down someone elses trees to stop the spread...
Self defense and defense of others (sometimes called alter ego defense or defense of a third person) are a pair of legal theories under which otherwise tortious or illegal acts may be justified when committed for the purpose of protecting oneself, or for the purpose of protecting another person. ...
In law, negligence is a type of tort or delict that can be either criminal or civil in nature. ...
Negligent hiring is a cause of action in tort law that arises where one party is held liable for negligence because they placed another party in a position of authority or responsibility, and an injury resulted because of this placement. ...
Negligent entrustment is a cause of action in tort law that arises where one party (the entrustor) is held liable for negligence because they negligently provided another party (the entrustee) with a dangerous instrumentality, and the entrusted party caused injury to a third party with that instrumentality. ...
The tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED) is a controversial legal theory and is not accepted in many United States jurisdictions. ...
In law, a duty of care is the legal requirement that a person exercise a reasonable standard of care to prevent injury of others. ...
In tort law, the standard of care is the degree of prudence and caution required of an individual who is under a duty of care. ...
Res ipsa loquitur is a legal term from the Latin meaning literally, The thing speaks for itself. The doctrine is applied to claims which, as a matter of law, do not have to be explained beyond the obvious facts. ...
The calculus of negligence is a term coined by Judge Learned Hand and describes a process for determining whether a legal duty of care has been breached (see negligence). ...
The eggshell skull rule (or thin-skull rule) is a legal doctrine used in both tort law and criminal law that holds an individual liable for all consequences resulting from their activities leading to an injury to another person, even if the victim suffers unusual damages due to a pre...
Vicarious liability is a form of strict, secondary liability that arises under the common law doctrine of agency – respondeat superior – the responsibility of the superior for the acts of their subordinate and can be distinguished from contributory liability, another form of secondary liability, which is rooted in the tort theory...
Under the attractive nuisance doctrine of the law of torts, a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by a hazardous object or condition on the land that is likely to attract children, who are unable to appreciate the...
Comparative responsibility is a doctrine of tort law that compares the fault of each party in a law suit for a single injury. ...
Trespasser (released in 1998) was a game taking place in the world of Jurassic Park. ...
A licensee is a term used in the law of torts to describe a person who is on the property of another, despite the fact that the property is not open to the general public, because the owner of the property has allowed the licensee to enter. ...
An invitee is a term used in the law of torts to describe a person who is on the property of another because that property owner has chosen to hold the property open to some portion of the general public, because the owner of the property has allowed the licensee...
Contributory negligence is a common law defence to a claim or action in tort. ...
Comparative negligence is a system of apportioning recovery for a tort based on a comparison of the plaintiffs negligence with the defendants. ...
This is a defense in the law of torts. ...
An intervening cause is a potential defense to the tort of negligence, if it is an unforseeable, and therefore superseding intervening cause, rather than a foreseeable intervening cause. ...
Strict liability is a legal doctrine in tort law that makes a person responsible for the damages caused by their actions regardless of culpability (fault) or mens rea. ...
An ultrahazardous activity in the common law of torts is one that is so inherently dangerous that a person engaged in such an activity can be held strictly liable for injuries caused to another person, even if the person engaged in the activity took every reasonable precaution to prevent others...
Product liability encompasses a number of legal claims that allow an injured party to recover financial compensation from the manufacturer or seller of a product. ...
Nuisance is a common law tort. ...
A contract is any legally-enforceable promise or set of promises made between parties. ...
Property law is the law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land as distinct from personal or movable possessions) and in personal property, within the common law legal system. ...
In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ...
The law of trusts and estates is generally considered the body of law which governs the management of personal affairs and the disposition of property of an individual in anticipation and the event of such persons incapacity or death, also known as the law of successions in civil law. ...
Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that punishes criminals for committing offences against the state. ...
The law of evidence governs the use of testimony (eg. ...
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Controversy
The doctrine of proximate cause is notoriously confusing. The doctrine is phrased in the language of causation, but in most of the cases in which it is applied, there is no real dispute that the defendant caused the plaintiff's injury. The doctrine is actually used by judges to limit the scope of the defendant's liability to a subset of the total class of potential plaintiffs who suffered some harm from the defendant's actions. For an understanding of the broader view of causation which proximate cause circumscribes, see Butterfly effect. The Butterfly Effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. ...
For example, in the two famous Kinsman Transit cases from the 2nd Circuit (exercising admiralty jurisdiction over a New York incident), it was clear that mooring a boat improperly could lead to the risk of a boat drifting away and crashing into another boat, and that both boats could crash into a bridge, which collapsed and blocked the river, and in turn, the wreckage could flood the land adjacent to the river, as well as prevent any traffic from traversing the river until it had been cleared. But under proximate cause, the property owners adjacent to the river could sue (Kinsman I), but not the owners of the boats or the cargoes which could not move until the river was reopened (Kinsman II). Old Admiralty House, Whitehall, London, Thomas Ripley, architect, 1723-26, was not admired by his contemporaries and earned him some scathing couplets from Alexander Pope The Admiralty was historically the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. ...
Therefore, in 2001, the American Law Institute proposed in a draft of the Restatement (Third), Torts: Liability for Physical Harm (Basic Principles) that proximate cause should be replaced with scope of liability. 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
The American Law Institute (ALI) was established in 1923 to promote the clarification and simplification of American common law and its adaptation to changing social needs. ...
But for test The but for test, sometimes "but for causation," is a simplistic analysis of the Actual cause issue. The "but for test" asks the question, "But for the defendant's actions, would y have occurred?" The "but for test" is often used in jury instructions regarding proximate cause. In law, causation is the name given to the process of testing whether defendants should be fixed with liability for the outcome to their acts and omissions that injure or cause loss to others. ...
A defendant is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute. ...
Jury instructions are the set of legal rules that jurors must follow when the jury is deciding a case. ...
For example, "But for the defendant's running of a red light, Mrs. Y would still be alive today."
The "but for test" is often criticized because of the potentially long chain of events that can be an actual cause. Taking the previous example, one could create an alternative chain of events.
"But for Mrs. Y running fifteen minutes early for her appointment, she would still be alive today."
Special circumstances A few circumstances exist where the but for test will be discounted. The primary example are: - Concurrent causes. Where two separate acts of negligence combine to cause an injury to a third party, each actor is liable, even though the injury would not have happened but for the negligence of the other actor. For example, a construction worker negligently leaves the cover off a manhole, and a careless driver negligently clips a pedestrian, forcing the pedestrian to fall into the open manhole. Both the construction worker and the careless driver are equally liable for the injury to the pedestrian.
- Sufficient combined causes. Where an injury results from two seperate acts of negligence, either of which would have been sufficient to cause the injury, both actors are liable. For example, two campers in different parts of the woods negligently leave their campfires unattended. A forest fire results, but the same amount of property damage would have resulted from either fire. Both campers are equally liable for all damage.
- In the United States, the rule of Summers v. Tice [1] holds that where two parties are equally negligent, but only one causes an injury to a third party, the burden shifts to the negligent parties to prove that they were not the cause of the injury. In that case, two hunters had negligently fired their identical guns across a highway, and one bullet injured a passerby. Because it was impossible to tell which hunter fired the shot that caused the injury, the court held both hunters liable for it..
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