Causation

• What is the test for factual causation?

  'But for' the defendant's conduct would the consequence have happened
• What is a case for factual causation?

  Pagett
• What is the test for legal causation?

  The defendant must be more than a minimal cause of the consequence but not a substantial cause
• What is a case for legal causation?

  Kimsey
• What is the thin-skull rule?

  The defendant must take the victim as he finds him
• What is the case for the thin-skull rule?

  Blaue
• What is the chain of causation?

  Where there's a direct link from the defendant's conduct to the consequence
• When might an intervening act break the chain of causation?

  When it is sufficiently independent and sufficiently serious of the defendant's conduct
• What are the three things that can break the chain of causation?

  An act of a third party, the victim's own act, a natural but unpredictable event
• Is medical treatment likely to break the chain of causation?

  No unless it is so independent of the defendant's acts and in itself so potent in causing death that the defendant's acts are insignificant
• What case states medical treatment will only break the chain of causation if it is 'so independent' and 'so potent in causing death'?

  Cheshire
• What is a case where medical treatment breaks the chain of causation?

  Jordan
• What is the point of law from Malcherek?

  Switching off a life-support machine does not break the chain of causation
• When does the victim's own act not break the chain of causation?

  If the defendant causes the victim to react in a reasonably foreseeable way
• When does the victim's own act break the chain of causation

  If the victim reacts in a way the ordinary person would not have done
• What are two cases where the victim's own act does not break the chain of causation?

  Roberts and Marjoram
• What is a case where the victim's own act does break the chain of causation?

  Williams and Davis