GLOSSARY
Causation definition
What does Causation mean?
Causation comprises the policy definitions on what in law constitutes a factual connection between an act and a consequence that in some way follows from that act.
For policy reasons, the law requires the prosecution prove a sufficient causal connection between the act or omission complained of and the injury suffered. In this way the law limits liability to consequences which are attributable to the wrongful act or breach, although causation is not dependent on remoteness or immediacy in time. The major test is whether 'but for' the defendant's action, would the victim have been injured in the way that they were. The second aspect to this is whether there was a new intervening act (novus actus interveniens) that came between a wrongful act and its consequences, such that the wrongful act did not truly cause the situation. However, even unusual biological weaknesses in a victim (such as an egg shell skull) do not break the chain of causation, and the Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996 abolished the old rule that the victim
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