Causation Flashcards
R v White
Involved a def who wanted to poison his mother. He administered poison, but the mother died anyways from natural causes. But for the def’s act would the prohibited consequence have occurred? Yes. So there was no factual link.
R v Pagett
The defendant was on the run, held up in a house with his girlfriend who was 16 and pregnant. He was surrounded by police. He used his gf as a human shield. The police fired. They hit his gf. She died. Pagett didn’t. The immediate cause of death was the police bullet; it was the main cause of death. Being taken out as a human shield was less of a contribution than the police bullet that was fired at her. But we are looking for a significant contribution to the sole cause of death. Who is most to blame for the victim’s death? Pagett is the most blameworthy. He put his gf in a situation…and “but for” that happening, she would not have died
R v Jorden
Medical treatment. Does this break the chain of causation and become the most blameworthy aspect of this killing? Jordan considered this. Medical treatment must be papally wrong - “so wrong that you can touch it.” Really negligent.
R v Cheshire
Ordinary medical negligence is foreseeable. We know there are sometimes failings in the medical system because of how busy they are, and how intense the situations can be. Sometimes mistakes happen.
R v Roberts
Involved a case of a man and woman driving in a car. Roberts tried to touch the woman in the car. The victim jumped out of the car…she ended up battered and bruised and cut. Is that a foreseeable thing to do? Is it foreseeable that a victim in that situation might jump out of the car? Probably, yes. The Court agreed this was daft, but not so daft that it couldn’t be said to be seen as unforeseeable. Roberts was still liable.
R v Blaue
Blood transfusion case, and victim wouldn’t have it. The def takes the victim as they find it. If the victim has a particular weakness or some part of a condition that makes them more susceptible to injury or adverse outcomes…then you have an unlucky defendant. In Blaue considered that someone’s faith and religious beliefs in relation to receiving medial treatment was part of their psychological make it. Blaue was taking the victim as he found her.
(Thin Skull Rule)
R v Hart
New Zealand case. It all comes down to the foreseeability on the part of the defendant. If you knock your victim unconscious and left them on the beach in the area you knew that the tide would come into and they were then swept out and drowned…is that a reasonably foreseeable consequence of your actions? A naturally occurring event now…is not now going to break the chain of causation. The def will still be liable.
If the def knocked their victim unconscious and left them up the beach where the tide never comes in, but a freak wave comes in and sweeps them out to sea…if that freak wave was a unforeseeable natural occurrence, then that might be sufficient to break the chain of causation and excuse the def from liability.
