Legal Causation II. This reveals that causations underlying rationale is more closely related to concerns about fair attribution rather than moral innocence. Such cases create a logical gap between the sphere of risk created by the accuseds behaviour and some tragic result. There must also be legal causation (or cause in law), meaning that it is fair to ascribe the victims death to the accuseds conductor, in other words, that the accused is morally responsible for the victims death. The need for law of causation arises mostly in the context of homicide cases, although it is demanded in all result crimes (murder, criminal damage). [36] In contexts where the defendant contributes significantly to the victims death and there is no intervening act or event, legal causation is relatively simple. Some courts use the "substantial factor" test, which states that as long as a defendant's actions were a substantial factor in the crime, then that defendant can be found guilty. Someone commits a criminal action, which is the cause of a crime. These attorneys are very familiar with local criminal procedures and laws - some may have even first worked as prosecutors. Indeed, like so many other complex areas of human life, we struggle to understand how things come to be and what our role is in effectuating changes in the world. His act need not be the sole cause, but must make a significant and not trivial (de minimis non curat lex) contribution to the result. [77] See Criminal Code, supra note39, ss220, 236. What is Meant by 'Causation' in Criminal Law? - LawTeacher.net [7] See Glanville Williams, Finis for Novus Actus? (1989) 48:3 Cambridge LJ391 at391. Over the past two decades, the Supreme Court of Canada has developed an overarching account of causation rooted in the need to prevent the conviction of the morally innocent. [93] Furthermore, the but-for test is unhelpful where death would have ensued even without the accuseds act, such as in cases where the accused prematurely kills a victim that is on the verge of death. [24] In clear cases, the cause in fact inquiry is often framed in counterfactual terms: the victim would not have died or suffered gross bodily harm but for the accuseds contribution to that result. The judges concluded that the accuseds conduct was an instrumental and significant cause of death, notwithstanding the victims voluntary decision to consume the drugs. Butt contends that such a charge would be more consistent with how juries are actually instructed when evaluating causation: to ask themselves, Did the accused contribute significantly to the victims death?[109], In complicated cases with either multiple contributing causes or intervening acts, courts routinely hold that the ultimate causation question is whether the accused contributed significantly to the victims deathan inquiry that places greater importance on the requisite strength of the accuseds contribution to a result as opposed to a counterfactual assessment about their involvement.[110]. This is a criminal act that constitutes the conduct prohibited by the statute. T ort Law Battery is an intentional tort. See also Leroux, supra note56 at paras4041. Lastly, other decisions seem to suggest that the ultimate question that both factual and legal causation must address is whether the defendant contributed significantly to the result, making it unclear whether the significance of the contribution is part of factual or legal causation (see e.g. Legal causationand the doctrine of reasonably foreseeable intervening actsthus corrects for potential unfair blaming practices in the criminal law. The defendant's action need not be the sole cause of the resulting harm, but it must be more than minimal: novus actus interveniens novus actus interveniens is a new intervening act which breaks the chain of causation. . First, Canadian courts tend to recognize that the victims own voluntary, deliberate, and informed conduct does not constitute an independent intervening act that breaks legal causation. [5] The victim may die after refusing life-saving care for injuries inflicted by the accused. Legal causation assesses whether additional contributory causes fall within the range of risks associated with the accuseds conduct and are therefore fairly ascribable to them. [163], In such cases, the law does not construe the accused as morally innocent, especially if they intended to cause bodily harm and succeeded. [8] See Douglas Husak, Abetting a Crime (2014) 33:1 Law & Phil41 at6871; Terry Skolnik, Responsibility and Intervening Acts: What Maybin an Overbroad Approach to Causation (2014) 44:2 RGD557 at567. [8] These concerns are at the forefront when an accused risks being stigmatized for causing an injury or death for which they are not uniquely responsible. [182] See James Edwards & Andrew Simester, Crime, Blameworthiness, and Outcomes (2019) 39:1 Oxford J Leg Stud50 at71. For example, if a doctor takes a blood sample from a patient who has been stabbed and is dying the taking of the blood will weaken the patient, but the doctor's role in the patient's death is minimal and causally insignificant.Sometimes a new act or event (novus actus (or nova causa) interveniens) may break the legal chain of causation and relieve the defendant of responsibility. [84] Yet several years later in Maybin, the Court was more explicit about the formulation of the causation standard in the presence of intervening acts: it was significant contributing cause. [63] In support of that contention, Jill Presser notes: [V]irtually all conditions that are precipitating factors of a consequence may be said to be causes. According to the Texas Judicial Branch, 1.5 million civil cases were filed in the state of Texas in 2018. Given those risks, the significant contribution test may better protect against unfair attribution of certain results to the accused. [121], Third, the criminal laws rejection of contributory negligence and apportionment of liability also confines the doctrine of independent intervening acts. [106] Recognizing that harder cases inevitably require a consideration of the extent of the accuseds contribution to a result, Weinrib suggests that courts could avoid using but-for causation in many cases. [33] In the Courts view, it was simpler for triers of fact to understand causation described in positive terms (e.g., a significant contribution) as opposed to in negative terms (e.g., a not insignificant contribution). R v Harvey, 2016 BCCA 149 at para20. [85] Canadian courts as well as the England and Wales Court of Appeal (citing Maybin and prior English cases) affirmed that approach in homicide cases, highlighting the need to ensure that the accuseds contribution to the victims death is significant. Ultimately, this article reframes causation to better answer one of the most basic questions in the criminal law: Why am I being blamed for this? R v Kippax, 2011 ONCA 766 at para24 [Kippax]; Cormier c R, 2019 QCCA 76 at para16; R v Romano, 2017 ONCA 837 at paras2728; Sarazin c R, 2018 QCCA 1065 at para21). [70], Don Stuart posits that it is plausible that the adoption of the beyond de minimis standard can lead to convictions where the significant contributing cause standard can result in acquittals. In other words, the question asked is 'but for the defendant's actions, would the harm have occurred?' . The doctrine of reasonably foreseeable intervening acts assesses the relationship between the accuseds wrongful conduct and the victims death, even where the accused possesses sufficient moral fault. I. [138] For instance, an accuseds dangerous and unlawful act might create a reasonably foreseeable risk of bodily harm. In order for causation to be established on the balance of probabilities, it requires at least a 51% chance that the defendant's actions caused the damage (Hotson v East Berkshire Health Authority [1987] AC 750). [53], Independent intervening acts imply that the accuseds conduct only set the scene for some other act to cause the victims death and therefore was not instrumental in causing it. Causation Concurrence Scope of criminal liability Accessory Accomplice Complicity Corporate Principal Vicarious Severity of offense Felony Infraction (also called violation) Misdemeanor Inchoate offenses Attempt Conspiracy Incitement Solicitation Offences against the person Assassination Assault Battery Castration Child abuse Criminal negligence When the intervening act was unchosen, unforeseeable, and outside the scope of risks that flow from the accuseds conduct, it is difficult to justify punishing them for causing the victims death on the basis of desert or deterrence principles. [15] On fair labelling, see AJ Ashworth, The Elasticity of Mens Rea in CFH Tapper, ed, Crime, Proof and Punishment: Essays in Memory of Sir Rupert Cross (London, UK: Butterworths & Co, 1981) 45 at5356. In doing so, it sets out why legal causation is primarily concerned with fairly ascribing ambits of risk to individuals. [23] See Smithers v R (1977), [1978] 1SCR506 at518, 75DLR(3d)321 [Smithers]. Causation. [11] See Fleming James Jr & Roger F Perry, Legal Cause (1951) 60:5 Yale LJ761 at763; Husak, supra note8 at6671. Building on Jeremy Butts recent scholarship, Part II argues that judges should use a uniform formulation of the factual causation standard: significant contributing cause. Cause in law is more difficult to ascertain when another event or act also contributes to the victims death. This article aims to advance a more cogent and clear conception of the causation requirement in Canadian criminal law. However, medical evidence proved that the mother had died from a heart attack and that the poison was in no way connected to the death. [28] See David Ormerod & Karl Laird, eds, Smith and Hogans Criminal Law, 14th ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) at9192. [126] See Hart & Honor, supra note29 at326. Section 224 establishes that if the defendant injures the victim, causation subsists despite the victims failure to resort to proper means that would have prevented their death. The mostly accepted is the two-tier definition, that causation in both criminal . [92] See David, McCague & Yaniszewski, supra note35 at219; Clements v Clements, 2012 SCC32 at para40. Stephen, however, cautioned that causation would be negated where the relationship between the defendants act and the consequence was too obscure (ibid at3). [6] In all of these cases, some type of intervening event, cause, or act (a novus actus interveniens) obscures causation. Causation - Definition, Examples, Cases, Processes - Legal Dictionary As the Model Penal Code states, " [c]onduct is the cause of a result when [69] The Commission ultimately argued in favour of a causation test requiring the accused to contribute significantly to the result. Those contributory causes fall outside of the ambit of risk attributable to the accused. She explained: As I discussed inCribbin, while different terminology has been used to explain the applicable standard in Canada, Australia and England, whether the terminology used is beyondde minimis, significant contribution or substantial cause, the standard of causation which this terminology seeks to articulate, within the context of causation in homicide, is essentially the same. In Nette, Justice Arbour observed that factual causation is concerned with an inquiry about how the victim came to his or her death, in a medical, mechanical, or physical sense, and with the contribution of the accused to that result.[144] Later, in Maybin, the Court added that factual causation is inclusive in scopeit determines who can be deemed to have factually contributed to some result.[145]. An accused tends to exert less control, however, over others autonomous acts and the sphere of risks that others create. [123] See Maybin, supra note1 at para27; Pagett, supra note51; Dunne v Director of Public Prosecutions, [2016] IESC 24 at para70. Criminal Law: Causation - IPSA LOQUITUR [175] As Simester explains: Rather than culpability, the primary role of a finding of causation concerns ascriptive responsibility. [10] See R v Wallace, [2018] EWCA Crim690 atpara52 [Wallace]; Russell Brown, The Possibility of Inference Causation: Inferring Cause-in-Fact and the Nature of Legal Fact-Finding (2010) 55:1 McGill LJ1 at33. Some scholars have also argued that the term beyond the de minimis range is not fixed, but depends on the circumstances of the case: see e.g. How burden of proof differs. cause | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute * Assistant professor, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Civil Law Section. Sally Kyd, Causing Death in Alan Reed & Michael Bohlander, eds, Homicide in Criminal Law: A Research Companion (New York: Routledge, 2018) 119 at134. causation in these circumstances. Despite the presence of both actus reus and mens rea, a criminal act can be unsustainable in the eyes of law because of the absence/lack of . The act must be a causa sine qua non (cause without which) of the event. It is important to note that the Supreme Court of Canada did not adopt a significant contributing cause test in Clements, but rather settled on a standard of significant contribution to the risk of harm (ibid at para15). a test sometimes known as the but for test.2) Legal causation: the defendant's act must be an operative and substantial cause of the consequence. In Canadian criminal law, the doctrine of independent acts is generally subsumed by the test for reasonably foreseeable intervening acts. [29] See HLA Hart & Tony Honor, Causation in the Law, 2nd ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) at17273 (the authors use the alternate term eggshell skull). Those same factors also account for why the doctrine of reasonably foreseeable intervening acts has largely overshadowed the doctrine of independent intervening acts. Legal causation requires that the harm must result from a culpable act: 2. Cause in law strives to answer a fundamental question rooted in fidelity to fair labelling practices: Why am I being blamed for this? [52] Independent acts are said to create new causal chains and sever the accuseds legal responsibility for a given result. The focus in the legal causation analysis is whether, as a matter of policy, the connection between the ultimate result and the act of the defendant is too remote or insubstantial to impose liability. Causation in Criminal Law Explained - Bell Lamb & Joynson Solicitors Where there is more than one possible cause there are several tests that may be applied. Causation, on the other hand, is more concerned with fair attribution and accepts the defendants capacity and culpable state of mind. Factual causation thus requires the state to provide a public account of why that individual is being singled out as a subject of potential criminal liability. [139] Legal causation recognizes that an unforeseeable car accident caused by a reckless driver is a contributory cause that falls outside the realm of risk created by the accuseds initial assaultthe doctrine excludes the accuseds conduct as an instrumentally salient cause of death. The defendant was convicted at trial of manslaughter, and the conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal. [40] Notably, legal causation remains intact where the victim refuses life-saving treatment, for either religious or other reasons. [181] See Kadish, Complicity, Cause and Blame, supra note38 at356. legal cause | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute The thin skull principle was entrenched in the common law and recognized by scholars such as Hale and Stephen: see Sir Matthew Hale, Historia Placitorum Coronae: The History of the Pleas of the Crown (London, UK: Nutt & Gosling, 1736) vol 1 at428; Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England (London, UK: MacMillan & Co, 1883) vol 3 at57. Actus reus, or the guilty act. [37] See Tower, supra note6 at para25 (cited with approval in Maybin, supra note1 at para23). [67] Those circumstances can include the victims pre-existing medical condition, their refusal to receive life-saving care, negligent medical treatment provided by others, and contributory negligence. In these circumstances, the defendant is not taken to have caused the result in law. The tide rose and the victim drowned. [152] In the realm of criminal law, defendants conduct characteristically effectuates changes that worsen the victims plight or creates unreasonable risks to others. Factual and Legal Causation Generally A.
How Do Surface Winds Contribute To Upwelling And Downwelling?,
Articles W