Causation

Question 1

causation meaning

Answer 1

whether the D’s act caused the result

Question 2

Factual causation meaning

Answer 2

• only guilty if the consequence (result) would not have happened
• you would use the BUT FOR test

Question 3

R v White case (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 3

-FACTUAL CAUSATION
-key words:
•cyanide, mother died of heart attack

-BUT FOR White, he put cyanide into the mothers drink but she died from a heart attack before she could drink it- so he was not guilty (was convicted of attempted murder though)

Question 4

R v Pagett (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 4

-FACTUAL CAUSATION
-key words:
• used gf as a shield, police shot her, she died

-BUT FOR Pagett, using his girlfriend as a shield resulted in her death as the police shut her, so he caused her death

Question 5

Legal Causation meaning

Answer 5

• there may be more than one act contributing to the consequence (result)
• they can only be guilty if the conduct is more than minimal

Question 6

R v Kimsey (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 6

-LEGAL CAUSATION
-key words:
• car chase, other driver died, what happened before was unclear

-D doesn’t have to be the whole cause or substantial cause but it must be more than trivial

Question 7

R v Blaue (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 7

-LEGAL CAUSATION
-key words:
• no blood transfusion, Jehovah’s witness

KLP- take your victim as you find them, ‘so most people wouldn’t suffer from this however, because you take your victim as you find them, here,….’

-The young woman with stabbed very few to have a blood transfusion as she was a Jehovah’s Witness, The thin skull rule can be applied here, this is defined as one person’s threshold for injury is different to another’s)

Question 8

Legal causation- intervening acts meaning

Answer 8

-The chain of causation is broken by something else happening

Question 9

R v Smith (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 9

-LEGAL CAUSATION, intervening acts
-key words:
• stabbed, V carried to medical centre, dropped, artificial respiration made it worse, died

Question 10

R v Cheshire (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 10

-LEGAL CAUSATION, intervening acts
-key words:
•tracheotomy

-The victim was shot and need a tracheotomy (tube inserted to help victim breathe) but 2 months after this, V died from complications left by tracheotomy

Question 11

R v Jordan (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 11

-LEGAL CAUSATION, intervening acts
-key words:
•wrong antibiotic, died

-victim was stabbed in the stomach and was then given the wrong antibiotic from the hospital which then led to the death of the victim from an allergic reaction

Question 12

R v Malcherek (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 12

-LEGAL CAUSATION, intervening acts
-key words:
•brain dead, life machine off

-victim was stabbed by own husband and was then found to be brain-dead, the hospital then switched the life machine off

Question 13

Legal causation- victim’s act meaning

Answer 13

-the victims own act will depend on the severity of the threat

Question 14

R v Roberts (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 14

-LEGAL CAUSATION, victim’s own act
-key words:
•sexual advances, escaped, injured

-girl jumped from car to escape from the defendant sexual advances, she was injured, D was liable

Question 15

R v Williams (and what type of causation is it)

Answer 15

-LEGAL CAUSATION, victim’s own act
-key words:
•theft, jumped from car, died from head injury

-D was not guilty as it was only theft

Question 16

when does medical negligence break the chain of causation (it never usually does)

Answer 16

Medical negligence break the chain of causation where it is so significant that the original act becomes so unimportant and is palpably wrong