Causation Flashcards
Smithers
Facts
Appellant received racial slurs from victim Colby and teammates during hockey game. A made threats he would “get” victim. V scared to leave arena after game, leaves 45 minutes later with teammates. A approaches and punches V twice in head, kicks him when he’s bent over. V gasping for air, stops breathing, dies. Autopsy suggests death from aspiration of foreign materials present from vomiting.
Holding: The kick did not have to cause the vomiting, it had to be a more than de minimus legal cause, not a but for factual cause
• If evidence of relationship between the kick and the vomiting, the contributing causes do not prevent a conviction of manslaughter
o Thin skull rule
o Even if the unlawful act alone wouldn’t have caused the death, still a legal cause so long as it contributed in a more than de minimus
• MR for manslaughter is objective foreseeability of serious bodily harm
Pagett
Facts
A shot at police who were trying to arrest him. Appellant used girl as human shield, officers returned his gunfire and shot+killed the girl.
Holding
If the victim acted in a reasonable attempt to escape the violence of accused, death of victim was caused by the accused. Self defence is a type of preservation: the police were acting in self defence. As well, act was done in a legal duty.
Analysis
• 3rd parties sever causal chain with some exceptions
o Light a fire, firefighter chooses to go in and dies, you the fire setter are still at fault
• Man kills himself at gf’s encouragement, her badgering was a but for cause
Roberts
Facts: A gets in car with D and they drive to remote area. D jumps on A and ties to taker her clothes off, D says to take clothes off but if she won’t he’ll let her walk home. A asks to walk home. D threatens to beat her up, said he’s done it before and gotten away with it, will do it again. D starts driving and grabs at her coat, so A jumps out of moving car (~45 mph).
Held: Found guilty. Conduct of D amounted to threat of casing injury, act of jumping was natural consequence of D’s conduct, injury was the result of D’s conduct. Therefore D was in law and fact responsible for the injuries. Jury believed her testimony and therefore D found guilty.
Blaue
Facts: D goes into A’s house asking for sex, she rejects, he stabs her. A taken to hospital, refuses blood transfusion necessary to save her life because she’s a JW. She was aware of the consequences but refused for religion.
Held: Guilty of manslaughter. D’s stab wound caused the death, you must take the whole of the victim as you find them.
- Test: Only if the second cause is so overwhelming as to make the original wound merely part of the history can it be said that the death does not flow from the wound.
• The physical cause of death in this case was the bleeding into the pleural cavity arising from the penetration of the lung. This had not been brought about by any decision made by the deceased girl but by the stab wound
Maybin
Facts: Two brothers (M and T) get in argument with V. T punches V in face and head, Bouncer punches unconscious V in back of the head with force. V dies of bleeding to brain.
Held: Appeal denied, new trial ordered. It was open to TJ to find that the appellants caused the death.
Reasons:
- Factual causation: but for T’s punch, V wouldn’t have died
- Legal causation: Were the dangerous, unlawful acts of the accused a significant contributing cause of the victim’s death?
- Reasonable foreseeability: court takes a broad approach (general nature of intervening acts). Did the further non-trivial harm to V flow reasonably from T’s conduct? Yes.
- Reasonably foreseeable actions of others don’t break the chain of causation
