Causation (law)
"Legal cause" redirects here. For other uses, see Legal cause (disambiguation). This article is about legal causation. For causation in other contexts, see Causation (disambiguation).Causation is the "causal relationship between conduct and result". That is to say that causation provides a means of connecting conduct with a resulting effect, typically an injury. In criminal law, it is defined as the actus reus (an action) from which the specific injury or other effect arose and is combined with mens rea (a state of mind) to comprise the elements of guilt. Causation is only applicable where a result has been achieved and therefore is immaterial with regard to inchoate offenses.
Read more about Causation (law): Background Concepts, Establishing Causation, Establishing Factual Causation, Establishing Legal Causation, Example, Other Relevant Considerations, The Future?, Causation: Law and Science Compared
Famous quotes containing the word causation:
“The very hope of experimental philosophy, its expectation of constructing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is based on induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by experimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent invisible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental anticipation or metaphysical mediation.”
—Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)