Talk:Causation (law)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Law, an attempt at providing a comprehensive, standardised, pan-jurisdictional and up-to-date resource for the legal field and the subjects encompassed by it. |
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale. |
| Top | This article has been assessed as Top-importance on the assessment scale. |
 |
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details. | ||||||||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. | ||||||||
| ??? | This article has not yet received an importance rating on the importance scale. | ||||||||
|
|||||||||
causation in common sense
Should proximate cause be merged with this? Or at least more explicitly linked? Amcfreely 19:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Big changes
As you can see I've made very large changes to the previous version of this page, which was substantially defective, mainly in the introduction of basic concepts. Here is my explanation for my revisions.
(1) Causation is 'not' the test for determining a defendant’s liability. Causation can be (but need not be) an element in a test for liability. The statement is misleading, suggesting that all the legal system requires is a causal nexus between plaintiff and defendant to generate liability. Causation is but one many elements to a cause of action. For example in murder, there is (1) an act; (2) causing death; (3) with the relevant mental state. To simply claim that cause alone determines liability across the board is flatly wrong.
(2) I have added a section outlining how factual and legal causes are determined in law - a startling omission.
(3) The key principle – novus actus interveniens is not the key principle in causation. Quite the opposite. Once causation of the defendant is established, novus actus interveniens is used as a defence, to suggest that an act subsequent to that of the defendant ‘broke the chain of causation’. It is a subsequent inquiry, not something that determines a cause from the beginning.
(4) ‘Proximate cause’ – yes, this is difficult. As I understand it, English common law has a two step inquiry, where the US system has one – ‘what is the proximate cause?’ – a bit of a mish-mash of a factual causal inquiry and policy considerations. I've included the previous discussion substantially unaltered under a new heading.
(5) Case summaries – they seem okay and I haven’t moved them.
[edit] Just English law?
I was just reading this and found a few American references. I'm just wondering if this article is primarily for English (UK) law or is it American? Shamess 14:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
