Legal Causation

Legal Causation is a concept used in many legal areas. It is contrasted with Factual Causation. It is also called the Causa Causans

Unintentional Delicts
It is not enough for Legal Causation to be met, but also that the cause be direct, decisive, proximate, real, dominant, effective and substantive to the damage caused.

It also asks if there is a novas actus interveniens - new intervening act - that "breaks" the chain of causation. If person A injures a person B, and person B goes to hospital and whilst there injures person C, whilst in factual causation it can be argued that Person A is the cause (But for the act of A, B would not have been in the hospital to injure C), this would be an absurd liability for A to be responsible for as B has taken this second act on his own violation.

However, if the act was reasonably foreseeable on the third party's part then the chain may not be broken after all.

This is demonstrable in Sabri-Tabrizi v Lothian Health Board. Ms Sabri-Tabrizi became pregnant twice after a failed sterilisation. Although it was found that she could claim for her first pregnancy, as this was reasonably foreseeable; it was not foreseeable that she would continue to have unprotected sexual encounters knowing she was not sterile, and thus could not claim for her second pregnancy.