Establishing Causation
Where establishing causation is required to establish legal liability, it is usually said that it involves a two-stage inquiry.
The first stage involves establishing ‘factual’ causation. Did the defendant act in the plaintiff’s loss? This must be established before inquiring into legal causation.
The second stage involves establishing ‘legal’ causation. This is often a question of public policy: is this the sort of situation in which, despite the outcome of the factual enquiry, we might nevertheless release the defendant from liability, or impose liability?
Read more about this topic: Causation (law)
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