Category Archives: Causation
James Chang, ‘The Psychologists are Coming! On Neuroscience and Psychology’s Role in Affecting Our View on Moral and Legal Culpability’
ABSTRACT Advances in social psychology and neurosciences have forced legal theorists to face a dilemma. Legal theorists are finding their ‘intuitive sense of justice’ challenged, as it is confronted by the discovery of biological pathology and social factors external to the human individuals that may be associated with criminal and socially undesirable behavior. This is […]
Sandy Steel, ‘Material Contribution to Damage, Again’
ABSTRACT This case note considers recent statements about the scope of the doctrine of ‘material contribution to damage’ in the tort of negligence. It argues that such a rule continues to exist, as a matter of authority, in single tortfeasor cases, but that the authorities are not entirely reconcilable with each other. It explains five […]
Thomas Byrne, ‘Legal causation’
ABSTRACT I propose a new formalist account of legal (/proximate) causation – one that holds legal causation to be a matter of amoral, descriptive fact. The account starts with a metaphysical relation, akin to but distinct from common-sense causation, and it argues that legal causation aligns exactly with that relation; it is unified and principled. […]
Stuart-Smith, Otto and Wetzer, ‘Liability for Climate Change Impacts: the Role of Climate Attribution Science’
ABSTRACT Climate science has a central role to play in many cases related to climate change: Lliuya v RWE is an exemplar of this. As the demands on courts to resolve issues related to climate change grow, judges are asked to adjudicate claims that introduce climate science to demonstrate that defendants’ actions interfere with rights […]
Henry Cooney, ‘Risk and Causation in Negligence’
ABSTRACT This article comments upon a recent decision of the High Court of Australia in Tapp v Australian Bushmen’s Campdraft & Rodeo Association Ltd [2022] HCA 11. The principal areas of focus are (1) the characterisation of risk in the law of negligence, (2) the proper approach when considering breach of duty in the law […]
Phil Corkum, ‘Is “cause” ambiguous?’
ABSTRACT Causal pluralists hold that that there is not just one determinate kind of causation. Some causal pluralists hold that ‘cause’ is ambiguous among these different kinds. For example, Hall argues that ‘cause’ is ambiguous between two causal relations, which he labels dependence and production. The view that ‘cause’ is ambiguous, however, wrongly predicts zeugmatic […]
‘Comment on the recent case on whether a suicide is an unforeseeable intervening event’
‘A few days ago I reported (here) that the Illinois Appellate Court recently decided a case on whether a decedent’s conduct in committing suicide constitutes a superseding cause that defeats a plaintiff’s cause of action for wrongful death. The case is called O’Donnell v. Bailey & Associates Counseling …’ (more) [Alberto Bernabe, Torts Blog, 21 […]
Burk, ‘Causation and Conception in American Inventorship’
ABSTRACT Increasing use of machine learning or ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) software systems in has led some to speculate that perhaps machines might be considered inventors under patent law. While US patent doctrine decisively precludes such a bizarre and counterproducive result, the speculation leads to a more fruitful inquiry about the role of causation in the […]
Bullock, ‘Public Nuisance and Climate Change: The Common Law’s Solutions to the Plaintiff, Defendant and Causation Problems’
ABSTRACT Litigation relating to climate change is on the rise, yet outside the United States few efforts have been made to bring private actions in public nuisance seeking injunctive relief to require a defendant to reduce its emissions. This article examines three key doctrinal challenges facing a plaintiff in a public nuisance action connected to […]
Rawlinson and Turton, ‘The two cultures: how disease and clinical negligence practitioners approach the application of material contribution to causation in law’
INTRODUCTION Why is there an apparent difference between the analysis used by some (on the one hand) disease lawyers and (on the other) clinical negligence practitioners when they seek to answer the question: ‘when should the test for causation in law be proof merely of material contribution in fact (“MCIF”) as opposed to the higher […]