Causation Flashcards
Baker v Willoughby
Where C’s injury is the product of two successive torts the second tort is not to be treated as obliterating the causal effect of the first tort.
Bailey v MoD
If a cause made a more than negligible contribution to C’s injury it will be deemed a material contribution.
Jobling v Associated Diaries
A “vicissitude of life” may displace D’s liability for C’s injury - to hold otherwise would have violated the principle that C should not be made better off than she was before the tort.
Corr v IBC Vehicles
If C’s illness and the ensuing consequences were produced by the initial injury D will, subject to remoteness considerations, be causally liable for that as well.
Gray v Thames Trains
D will not be regarded as having caused C injury which is brought about by C’s own criminal conduct (this would contradict the criminal law ruling that C was responsible for his own conduct).
Fairchild v Glenhaven
Where there are multiple breaches of duty materially increasing the risk of D’s injury and it is scientifically impossible to show which one of them caused it on a balance of probabilities each breach is to be treated as materially contributing to the disease.
McGhee v NCB
For reasons of policy and justice the person who should suffer from the inherent evidential difficulty in cases of material increases in risk should be the creator of the risk, who must be taken to have foreseen the possibility of damage.
Barker v Corus
The Fairchild exception arises wherever it is impossible to prove on a BoP that but for D’s negligence, C’s injury would not have been caused by ANOTHER POTENTIAL CAUSATIVE AGENT OPERATING THE SAME WAY. Thus Fairchild applies to all single agent cases.
Wilsher v Essex HA
Where there are multiple agents at work Fairchild is not applicable.
Hull v Sanderson
Fairchild only applies where it is inherently impossible, because of scientific limitations, to show on a BoP what caused C’s injury.
Gregg v Scott
If on the BoP C would have suffered the same loss had D not been negligent, C cannot recover for loss of a chance.
Chester v Afshar
If C can show that but for D’s negligent failure to warn her of a risk in a medical procedure, she would not have had the procedure on the day that she did, this will suffice as proof of causation (CONTENTIOUS, but this was on policy grounds as the majority held the purpose of tort law was to “vindicate rights” and wanted to vindicate C’s right to informed consent to medical treatment)
Allied Maples Group
If C’s loss depended upon the decision of a 3rd party and C shows there was a substantial chance of success but for D’s negligence C may recover for loss of a chance of success even if C cannot show that she would have succeeded on the balance of probabilities.
The Wagon Mound
Overturning the Re Polemis rule on directness as “illogical and unjust”, a new test of remoteness was introduced - was the harm suffered by Ca reasonably foreseeable consequence of D’s negligence?
Wagon Mound No.2 (2 precedents)
- The foreseeability test of remoteness applies also to nuisance.
- A consequence that is unlikely to occur may still be sufficiently foreseeable if D acted unreasonably because foreseeability is distinct from probability and is a relative concept.
Stewart v West African Terminals
If the consequence was one “within the general range of which any reasonable person might foresee and was not of an entirely different kind to what one would anticipate” it is not too remote a consequence.
Hughes v Lord Advocate
As long as the type of injury was foreseeable it is immaterial that the precise manner of its infliction was not.
Czar ikon
In tort, as opposed to contract, “D will be liable for any type of damage which is reasonably foreseeable as likely to happen, even in the most unusual case, unless the risk is so small that a reasonable man would in the whole circumstances feel justified in neglecting it.”
Tremain v Pike
If C’s injury is exceedingly rare (e.g. Weil’s disease which could ONLY be contracted via rat urine) greater precision may be required in identifying the kind of damage hat was foreseeable.
Calvert
The question is whether the scope of the DoC in the circumstances embraces damage of the KIND which C claims to have suffered.
Gorris v Scott
If D’s DoC was to prevent one kind of damage and an entirely different kind of damage eventuates he will not be liable for it.
Aneco (contrast)
If D undertakes to give general advice on the wisdom of entering into a transaction he will be liable for all the foreseeable consequences of negligence in that undertaking (contrast Banque Bruxelles Lambert where the duty was to give specific information and D was only liable for the consequences of that information)
Quinn v Leatham
Intended consequences are never too remote.
Scott v Shepherd
Intentional wrongdoers are liable for all foreseeable consequences of their wrongdoing.
Bradford
If the extent of the injury was not foreseeable it is sufficient that it fell into a foreseeable category of harm.
Page v Smith
D takes C as he finds him, including weaknesses which exacerbate the damage in an unforeseeable way.
Lagden v O’Connor
C’s financial state may engage the eggshell skull principle if his impecuniosity leaves him with NO CHOICE but to incur the relevant loss.
Robinson v Post Office
If the injury is exacerbated by a combination of C’s existing abnormality and an external force which foreseeably and naturally intervenes, the eggshell skull principle is engaged.
Carlosgie
If a natural event independent of the breach of duty causes damage to C, the breach of duty must have rendered C more susceptible to damage by that event to have caused the damage. This is so even if the natural event would have caused C no damage but for the breach of duty.
The Oropesa
To be a novus actus a 3rd party’s intervention must be “unwarrantable, a new cause which disturbs the sequence of events…capable of description as unreasonable or extraneous or extrinsic”
Lamb v Camden LBC (contrast)
The courts are reluctant to find D liable for the willful wrongdoing of others even where the wrongdoing was foreseeable. If D’s wrongdoing is extreme the courts may, however do so (Ward v Cannock Chase).
Haynes v Harwood
If D is under a duty to guard against T’s wrongdoing T’s wrongdoing will not be remote just because it is willfully inflicted.
McKew
If C’s act was sufficiently unreasonable in the circumstances it may constitute a novus actus.
Emeh
The court will not condemn C’s behavior as unreasonable simply because she does not take the course which is cheapest for D - the threshold of unreasonableness is a high one.
Reeves v MPC
If C’s willful conduct is precisely that which D has a duty to guard against it will not be a novus actus though it may establish contributory negligence.
Corr v IBC Vehicles
If D’s negligence causes D to develop psychiatric illness and C subsequently kills himself, by operation of the eggshell skull principle D will be liable for his death.
SAAMCO (negligent valuer)
The scope of a negligent valuer’s DoC will determine the level of damages payable. If the duty was wide (eg general advice) he must pay all losses including those resulting from market fluctuations. If the duty was confined to valuation his damages will be either the lender’s actual losses or the difference between the actual and reported valuation, whichever is lower.
Bonnington Castings
C only has to show that D’s negligence made a material contribution to his injury on the BoP. He does not have to show that on the BoP D’s negligence was the sole cause of the disease.
