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Most requirements for a successful actus reus require a voluntary act, or omission, for evidence of fault. There is also a requirement for a clear causation, there is no liability or fault if the defendant was not actually the sole cause of the act, this is so if there was an intervention of a third party, an unexpected natural event, or the victim's own act.
However, it does show that legal notions of causation are a complex mixture of factual causes and ideas of public policy relating to the availability of legal remedies. In R v Miller [1982] UKHL 6, the House of Lords said that a person who puts a person in a dangerous position, in that case a fire, will be criminally liable if he does not ...
Conduct in the law of delict is usually divided into factual and legal causation. Factual causation is proven by a 'demonstration that the wrongful act was a causa sine qua non of the loss'. This is also known as the 'but-for' test. A successful demonstration, however, 'does not necessarily result in legal liability'.
Causation in English law concerns the legal tests of remoteness, causation and foreseeability in the tort of negligence. It is also relevant for English criminal law and English contract law . In the English law of negligence , causation proves a direct link between the defendant ’s negligence and the claimant ’s loss and damage.
An omission can be criminal if there is a statute that requires one to act. A duty of care is imposed and one is required to act when one is: under a contract (R v Pittwood [5]), has assumed care (R v Stone and Dobinson [6]), has created a dangerous situation (R v Miller [7]), or fails to perform one's official position (R v Dytham. [8]).
Breaking the chain (or novus actus interveniens, literally new intervening act) refers in English law to the idea that causal connections are deemed to finish. Even if the defendant can be shown to have acted negligently, there will be no liability if some new intervening act breaks the chain of causation between that negligence and the loss or damage sustained by the claimant.
South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa.In the definition of Van der Walt et al., a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted."
In R. v. City of Sault Ste-Marie the Supreme Court of Canada created a two-tiered system of liability for regulatory offenses. Under this system, the Crown would continue to be relieved from proving the mens rea of the offense. However, offenses of strict liability would grant the accused a defense of due diligence—which would continue to be ...