Causation

What is Causation?

Causation in simple terms is just the action or process of causing something to happen. In the legal realm, the term takes on more weight. As a legal concept, causation is the link between one party’s actions and another party’s injury or harm. 

What is Causation

In many legal cases, a plaintiff needs to prove causation. They need to show that a defendant’s actions directly caused the plaintiff’s damages. In a negligence case, the plaintiff must demonstrate that their injury directly resulted from something that the defendant did or failed to do. In cases like that, it must also be shown that the defendant owed a certain duty to the plaintiff in the first place. 

There are two distinct types of causation. Firstly, there is factual causation which establishes that a defendant is a cause of the chain of events that led to a plaintiff’s harm. Then there is proximate (or legal) causation, which allows for a defendant to be held legally responsible for a plaintiff’s harm as long as it was a direct, foreseeable result of the defendant’s actions. As long as there are no interfering causes that make a harm unforeseeable or somehow make a defendant’s actions more reasonable, a defendant who is found to be the main cause of a plaintiff’s damages is likely to be found liable to paying those damages in court.