What is the meaning of proximate cause?
What is the meaning of proximate cause?
The actions of the person (or entity) who owes you a duty must be sufficiently related to your injuries such that the law considers the person to have caused your injuries in a legal sense. If someone’s actions are a remote cause of your injury, they are not a proximate cause.
What is a superseding cause?
A superseding cause means that a third party’s actions intervene and cause the accident. In other words, an unforeseeable or improbable intervening cause will constitute a superseding cause, and will allow a defendant to escape liability.
What is the legal definition of intervening cause?
An event that occurs after a party’s improper or dangerous action and before the damage that could otherwise have been caused by the dangerous act, thereby breaking the chain of causation between the original act and the harm to the injured person, is known as an “intervening cause.” The presence of an intervening …
What is an example of proximate cause?
When a speeding driver fails to stop at a stop sign, another driver must swerve to miss them. The second driver fails to notice a pedestrian in the crosswalk. The speeding driver is a proximate cause of the injury to the pedestrian because the secondary crash was a foreseeable consequence of the speeding driver.
What is the meaning of a proximately?
1 : immediately preceding or following (as in a chain of events, causes, or effects) proximate, rather than ultimate, goals— Reinhold Niebuhr. 2a : very near : close. b : soon forthcoming : imminent.
What is a proximate cause in law?
An actual cause that is also legally sufficient to support liability. Although many actual causes can exist for an injury (e.g., a pregnancy that led to the defendant’s birth), the law does not attach liability to all the actors responsible for those causes.
What is the difference between an intervening and superseding cause?
The key difference between an intervening cause and a superseding cause is foreseeability. An intervening act will be called a superseding cause (or act) that relieves the original defendant of liability when the intervening act was or should have been reasonably foreseeable to the original defendant.
How is an intervening cause different from a superseding cause?
Superseding cause might be thought of as being a step above intervening cause. An intervening cause is any event that occurs after the defendant’s actions and caused harm to the plaintiff.
What is an example of an intervening cause?
An example of an intervening cause is if an eyewitness to a car accident attempts to help a victim by lifting him or her out of the car but accidentally exacerbates the victim’s injuries. In this example, the witness’s intervention would be viewed as an intervening cause during a related personal injury claim.
What is the effect of an intervening cause?
In tort law, an intervening cause is an event that occurs after a tortfeasor’s initial act of negligence and causes injury/harm to a victim. An intervening cause will generally absolve the tortfeasor of liability for the victim’s injury only if the event is deemed a superseding cause.
How is proximate cause determined in a negligence case?
To prove proximate cause, victims must draw a line directly between the negligence of the defendant and the harm of the plaintiff. His or her conduct must be seen as ultimately responsible for the events and the primary cause of the injury to be deemed the proximate cause.
Is proximate cause an element of negligence?
Do you want to hold another party accountable for their negligent behavior? Doing so means you and your lawyer must prove the five elements of negligence: duty, breach of duty, cause, in fact, proximate cause, and harm.
What does proximate cause mean in law?
That which causes a negative event, such as an injury. 1590-1600 Latin proximatus (near, or approach) Proximate cause is an act, whether intentional or negligent, that is determined to have caused someone else’s damages, injury, or suffering.
What is efficient proximate cause?
Efficient proximate cause. A related doctrine is the insurance law doctrine of efficient proximate cause. Under this rule, in order to determine whether a loss resulted from a cause covered under an insurance policy, a court looks for the predominant cause which sets into motion the chain of events producing the loss,…
What is the proximate cause of an injury without intervention?
So, without the proximate cause the injury would not exist. In that way, it’s considered an action that resulted in foreseeable consequences without intervention. With the auto accident example, distracted driving would be the proximate cause.
How do you prove proximate cause in a personal injury case?
A plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit can establish proximate cause by showing that his/her injury was sufficiently closely related to the defendant’s conduct that liability should attach. Proximate cause is a necessary element to successfully prove that another person was negligent for causing an injury.