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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.
Sometimes the reverse situation to a novus actus occurs, i.e. factual causation cannot be proved but the court nevertheless does want to hold the defendant liable. In Sindell v. Abbott Laboratories, 607 P.2d 924 (Cal. 1980) the plaintiff's mother consumed diethylstilbestrol as a miscarriage preventive. [11]
Tort, negligence, factual causation, McGhee v National Coal Board [1972] UKHL 7 , 1 W.L.R. 1, is a leading tort case decided by the House of Lords . The Lords held that where a breach of duty has a material effect on the likelihood of injury then the subsequent injury will be said to have been caused by the breach.
Republican Party of Minnesota v. White , 536 U.S. 765 (2002), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the First Amendment rights of candidates for judicial office. In a 5–4 decision, the court ruled that Minnesota's announce clause, which forbade candidates for judicial office from announcing their views on disputed ...
In English law, loss of chance refers to a particular problem of causation, which arises in tort and contract. The law is invited to assess hypothetical outcomes, either affecting the claimant or a third party, where the defendant's breach of contract or of the duty of care for the purposes of negligence deprived the claimant of the opportunity to obtain a benefit and/or avoid a loss.
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.
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.
R v Smith (Thomas Joseph) [1959] 2 QB 35 is an English criminal law case, dealing with causation and homicide.The court ruled that neither negligence of medical staff, nor being dropped on the way from a stretcher twice, constituted breaks in the chain of causation in murder cases.