Causation & remoteness

What "Causation & remoteness" covers

• Factual causation normally uses the 'but for' test: would the harm have occurred but for the breach (Barnett)?
• Where 'but for' fails with multiple causes, a defendant who materially contributed to the harm may be liable (Bonnington Castings v Wardlaw); material contribution to the risk suffices only in limited cases such as industrial disease (McGhee, Fairchild).
• Legal causation can be broken by a new intervening act (novus actus) by a third party, the claimant, or a natural event that is unforeseeable or unreasonable.
• Remoteness limits recovery to damage of a reasonably foreseeable type (The Wagon Mound).
• It is enough that the type of harm is foreseeable, even if its precise manner or extent is not (Hughes v Lord Advocate).
• Under the thin-skull (egg-shell) rule the defendant takes the victim as found and is liable for the full extent of injury (Smith v Leech Brain).
• Fairchild and Chester show the courts will occasionally modify strict causation to avoid injustice.

Key cases & statutes

The authorities and provisions most likely to matter for this subtopic:

How it's tested in SQE1

SQE1 uses single best answer questions: a short factual scenario, one precise question, and five options of which only one is the best answer on the law applied to the facts. For causation & remoteness, expect to be asked what the correct legal position is, what a party may or must do, or which outcome follows — with more than one option looking arguable. Reading the facts carefully and eliminating the near-misses is the skill that earns the mark.

Where candidates lose marks

• Applying 'but for' rigidly where there are multiple sufficient or cumulative causes.
• Requiring the precise extent or manner of harm to be foreseeable, when only the type must be.
• Treating a foreseeable or reasonable intervening act as breaking the chain of causation.

FAQ

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