Category Archives: Causation
Causation in the Law: special number of the University of Western Australia Law Review
Introductory editorial Causation in the law (Elise Bant and Henry Cooney) Theme: The Nature of Causation Causation (Contribution) and the ‘No Worse Off’ Limitation on Liability (Richard Wright) Omissive Overdetermination: Why the Act-Omission Distinction Makes a Difference for Causal Analysis (Yuval Abrams) Three Categories of Causation in Tort Law (Johannes Hygen Meyer) Theme: Causation, Science […]
Kohler-Hausmann and Dembroff, ‘Supreme Confusion About Causality at the Supreme Court’
ABSTRACT Twice in the 2020 term, in Bostock and Comcast, the Supreme Court doubled down on a particular interpretation of how ‘but-for causation’ applies to antidiscrimination statutes. According to the Court’s reasoning, an outcome is discriminatory because of some status – say, sex or race – if the outcome would not have occurred ‘but-for’” the […]
‘Causation and Intervening Medical Treatment’
“As lawyers representing parties in clinical negligence cases, we will often encounter scenarios where the injured party has been involved in a road traffic accident or an accident at work and subsequently seeks medical assistance for the purpose of treating their injuries. As a result of negligent medical treatment, the Claimant’s injuries are aggravated, or […]
Kylie Burns, ‘Liability for Workplace Psychiatric Injury and Vicarious Trauma: Kozarov v Victoria’
ABSTRACT Work-related psychiatric injury claims are frequent and costly. Workplace psychosocial hazards increase the risk of prolonged workplace stress, which can lead to physical and psychological injury. This article considers the forthcoming appeal to the High Court of Australia from the Victorian Court of Appeal decision in Victoria v Kozarov, which concerns a psychiatric injury […]
Richard Wright, ‘Causation (Contribution) and the “No Worse Off” Limitation on Liability’
ABSTRACT In this article, I rebut claims that there is no core sense of causation that underlies all of our uses of causal expressions, identify that core sense as causation in accordance with and as determined by the laws of nature, and elaborate and defend the NESS (necessary for the sufficiency of a sufficient set) […]
Nicholas McBride, ‘Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation: A Review of Stapleton, Three Essays on Torts’
ABSTRACT This is a review of Jane Stapleton’s Three Essays in Torts, published in the Journal of Professional Negligence. McBride, Nicholas, Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation: A Review of Stapleton, Three Essays on Torts (September 1, 2021). (2021) 37 Professional Negligence 200. First posted 2022-02-08 14:00:02
‘Making Sense of Proximate Cause’
Mark A Geistfeld, ‘Proximate Cause Untangled’, 80 Maryland Law Review 420 (2021). Negligence poses special challenges for legal scholars and practitioners. The broad sweep of the cause of action is made possible by reliance on concepts that operate at a high level of abstraction. This explains why negligence is so adaptable, and hence so adept […]
Alexandra Lahav, ‘Chancy Causation in Tort Law’
ABSTRACT Chancy causation is where the cause of an event can only be attributed probabilistically. Contrary to the understanding popular in legal theory, scientific fact plays only a minimal role in chancy causation cases. As a matter of metaphysics, factual inquiry can only determine whether an event has a tendency to cause an outcome. Yet […]
Cheong and Sathik, ‘Case Note – The Quintet of Cases on Breaches of Fiduciary Duties, Causation and Abuse of Process: Clarifications from the Court of Appeal in Beyonics Asia Pacific Ltd v Goh Chan Peng [2021] SGCA(I) 2′
ABSTRACT This case note discusses the decision of the Court of Appeal in Beyonics Asia Pacific Ltd v Goh Chan Peng [2021] SGCA(I) 2, which arose after a quintet of cases between a company and its former director for breach of his fiduciary duties. The decision also demonstrates an application of the current test for […]
Andreas, Armgardt and Gunther, ‘Counterfactuals for causal responsibility in legal contexts’
ABSTRACT We define a formal semantics of conditionals based on normatively ideal worlds. Such worlds are described informally by Armgardt (Gabbay D, Magnani L, Park W, Pietarinen A-V (eds), Natural arguments: a tribute to John Woods, College Publications, London, pp 699-708, 2018) to address well-known problems of the counterfactual approach to causation. Drawing on Armgardt’s […]