Causation is the legal connection between a person’s conduct and another person’s injuries or losses. In a personal injury case, proving that someone acted carelessly is only part of the equation. The injured person generally must also show that the careless conduct caused the harm for which they are seeking compensation.
Causation is an important element of negligence claims involving car accidents, slip and fall accidents, and many other preventable injuries. Understanding how it works can help explain why evidence connecting an accident to an injury often plays such an important role in a personal injury case.
What Are the Elements of Negligence?
Most personal injury claims are based on negligence. In general, negligence means failing to use the level of care that a reasonable person would use under similar circumstances.
A negligence claim generally requires proof of four elements:
- Duty: The defendant owed the injured person a legal duty of care.
- Breach: The defendant failed to meet the applicable standard of care.
- Causation: The defendant’s conduct caused the plaintiff’s injury.
- Damages: The plaintiff suffered legally recognized harm or losses.
Causation is what connects a defendant’s breach of duty to the plaintiff’s injuries. Someone may have acted negligently, but that does not automatically make them legally responsible for every injury or loss that followed.
What Are the Two Types of Causation?
Causation in tort law generally involves two related concepts: factual cause and proximate cause. Both can be important when determining whether a defendant’s actions caused a plaintiff’s injury.
What Is Factual Cause?
Factual cause, sometimes called actual cause or cause-in-fact, asks whether the defendant’s conduct actually contributed to the injury. Courts often discuss this concept using the “but-for” test.
Put simply, the question is: Would the injury have happened but for the defendant’s conduct?
Imagine that a driver runs a red light and crashes into another vehicle, breaking the other driver’s arm. If the collision and injury would not have happened but for the driver running the red light, the driver’s conduct may satisfy factual causation.
Of course, real accidents are not always so straightforward. Several events or people may contribute to an accident, making the question of factual causation more complicated.
What Is Proximate Cause?
Proximate cause focuses on whether there is a sufficiently close legal connection between the defendant’s conduct and the resulting injury. In other words, it helps determine which consequences can fairly be traced to the defendant’s actions and which may be too remote.
The Supreme Court of Virginia has explained that proximate cause involves an act or omission that produces an event through a natural and continuous sequence, without an efficient intervening cause, and without which the event would not have occurred.
Consider a speeding driver who loses control of a vehicle and strikes a pedestrian. There is a fairly direct connection between the driver’s conduct and the pedestrian’s injuries. An unrelated event occurring much later, however, could raise additional questions about whether the original negligence was the proximate cause of further harm.
Can There Be More Than One Cause of an Injury?
Yes. Accidents often happen because several things go wrong at once, and an injury does not necessarily have only one proximate cause.
Cases involving multiple potential causes require a close look at the sequence of events. Evidence can help establish which actions contributed to the accident and whether another event affected the chain of causation.
What Is an Intervening or Superseding Cause?
Sometimes, another event occurs after a defendant’s conduct but before the plaintiff suffers the ultimate injury. This is known as an intervening event. Whether it changes who may be legally responsible depends on how that event relates to the original negligence.
To supersede the original negligence, an intervening cause must operate independently in a way that entirely supersedes the defendant’s negligence and causes the injury without the original negligence contributing to it.
These questions depend heavily on the facts of each case.
What Evidence Can Help Establish Causation?
Evidence that may help establish causation includes:
- Accident or incident reports
- Photographs and video recordings
- Eyewitness testimony
- Medical records
- Medical testimony
- Vehicle damage
- Physical evidence from the accident scene
- Expert testimony and accident reconstruction evidence
There is no single piece of evidence that proves causation in every case. Instead, the available evidence must be considered together with the circumstances of the accident and the injuries being claimed.
Contact the Manassas Personal Injury Lawyers at The Parrish Car Accident & Personal Injury Law Firm for Help
Causation can become one of the most contested parts of a personal injury claim, especially when an insurance company argues that an accident did not cause some or all of a person’s injuries.
If you were injured because of someone else’s negligence in Manassas, Virginia, The Parrish Car Accident & Personal Injury Law Firm can review what happened and help you better understand your legal options. Contact us at (571) 229-1800 to schedule a free consultation with a Manassas personal injury attorney.
