When you’re injured in an accident, proving that someone else caused your injuries is essential to winning your personal injury case.
Causation is one of the most important legal concepts in personal injury law. Understanding how it works can help you build a strong claim.
What Is Causation in Personal Injury Law?
Causation is the legal link between a defendant’s actions and the harm you suffered. In simple terms, you must prove that the defendant’s conduct directly caused your injuries. Without establishing causation, even clear negligence won’t result in compensation.
Personal injury law recognizes two elements of causation: actual cause and the proximate cause. Both are typically required in a personal injury case, and each serves a different purpose in determining liability.
Understanding causation helps you see why some injury claims fail while others succeed. The legal standard requires more than just showing that an accident happened. You must prove a direct connection between the defendant’s actions and your specific injuries.
Actual Cause: The “But For” Test
Actual cause, also called cause-in-fact, asks a simple question: would your injury have occurred “but for” the defendant’s actions? This test establishes the most basic connection between conduct and harm.
For example, if a driver runs a red light and hits your car, causing you to break your arm, the “but for” test is clear. But for the driver running the red light, you wouldn’t have broken your arm. The connection is direct and obvious.
However, some cases involve multiple potential causes. When several factors contribute to an injury, proving actual cause becomes more complex. According to Tennessee tort law, courts look at whether the defendant’s conduct was a substantial factor in causing the injury.
Consider a slip and fall case where both a wet floor and your distraction contributed to your fall. Even though multiple factors contributed to the incident, if the property owner’s failure to clean up the spill was a substantial factor, actual cause can still be established.
Proximate Cause: Evaluating Foreseeability
Proximate cause goes beyond simple causation. It determines whether holding someone legally responsible makes sense by asking whether the harm was a foreseeable result of the defendant’s actions.
The law recognizes that some injuries are too remote or unforeseeable to give rise to legal liability. Proximate cause draws a line between consequences that should result in liability and those that are too far removed from the original action.
Key factors courts consider include:
- Foreseeability: Could a reasonable person predict this type of harm?
- Directness: How many steps separate the defendant’s action from your injury?
- Intervening causes: Did something else break the chain of causation?
- Policy concerns: Does imposing liability make sense?
For example, suppose another driver causes an accident, and you’re taken to the hospital, where you contract an infection. In that case, the infection might be too remote from the accident to be considered a direct result. However, if you develop PTSD from the accident itself, that’s more likely to be a foreseeable result.
Common Challenges in Proving Causation
Proving causation often presents the biggest hurdle in personal injury cases. Several situations make establishing the required connection difficult.
Common obstacles include:
- Multiple potential causes of your injury
- Pre-existing medical conditions
- A gap in medical treatment (could suggest injuries weren’t serious)
- Inconsistent statements about how the accident occurred
- Lack of medical documentation right after the accident
- Defense experts offering alternative explanations
- Events that occurred between the accident and your worsening condition
An experienced attorney should be familiar with common roadblocks in proving causation and know how to overcome them.
What Are Intervening and Superseding Causes?
Sometimes events occur after the defendant’s negligent act that break the chain of causation. These are called intervening causes, and they can either support or destroy your case.
An intervening cause is any event that happens between the defendant’s negligence and your injury. Foreseeable intervening causes typically don’t break the chain of causation. For example, if a driver causes an accident and a second driver can’t stop in time and hits you, the first driver remains liable. A chain reaction accident is a foreseeable consequence.
Unforeseeable superseding causes do break the chain of liability. If lightning strikes your car immediately after an accident and causes additional injuries, the lightning strike is a superseding cause. The original negligent driver isn’t responsible for injuries caused by the lightning strike.
Building a Strong Case for Causation
Taking the right steps early can make the difference between winning and losing your case.
Steps to strengthen your causation argument include:
- Document everything you can about the accident (photos, your memories, etc.)
- Obtain contact information for any witnesses
- Keep a daily journal about your pain and limitations
- Follow all medical advice and attend every appointment
- Tell doctors about any pre-existing conditions honestly
- Report new symptoms to your doctor promptly
- Seek medical treatment promptly, and avoid gaps in medical treatment
- Preserve physical evidence like damaged property or torn clothing
Working with an experienced personal injury attorney early helps ensure you gather the right evidence. Attorneys understand what proof courts require to establish causation and can guide you in building a strong case.
Contact Our Brentwood Personal Injury Lawyers at Meyers Personal Injury Law for a Free Consultation
Proving causation is essential to recovering compensation for your injuries. If you’ve been injured and need help proving causation in your case, contact Meyers Personal Injury Law today for a free consultation. Our Brentwood personal injury lawyers can answer your questions and help you understand your right to compensation.
