Also known as: causal chains · chain of causation · causation chain
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A sequence of events connecting an initial act or omission to a resulting harm or legal consequence. An intervening act or event breaks the chain when it is independent, unforeseeable, or superseding under the applicable doctrinal test.
Cynthia Cortez received a prescription for a medication after her physician reviewed the manufacturer's materials. The physician independently decided the benefits outweighed the disclosed risks and prescribed the drug. When Cynthia later suffered an adverse reaction, the court held that the physician's medical judgment broke the causal chain between the manufacturer and the patient.
Catherine Carter continued smoking after learning that Liggett's advertisements were false. Her continued purchases after that point severed any causal connection between the earlier warranty breach and her lung cancer. The court therefore limited recovery to the period before she acquired actual knowledge of the falsity.
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Chloe Chen was prosecuted under a federal statute criminalizing gender-motivated violence on the theory that such acts collectively deter interstate travel and employment. The Court rejected the government's multi-step causal theory linking individual assaults to nationwide economic effects. The attenuated chain of inferences failed to supply a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
Caleb Chang, a city contractor, challenged the President's cancellation of a spending provision that would have funded his project. The Court traced the injury from the cancellation through the statutory mechanism to the loss of expected funds. The direct causal chain supported standing despite the involvement of multiple governmental actors.
Corinne Cho, a remanufacturer of printer components, sued Lexmark for false advertising that allegedly diverted customers. The Court required proof that the injury was fairly traceable through the chain of consumer purchasing decisions. A sufficiently direct link between the misleading statements and lost sales satisfied the traceability requirement.
Curtis Cannon, representing Massachusetts, alleged that EPA's refusal to regulate greenhouse gases contributed to rising sea levels harming state coastal property. The Court accepted the chain linking EPA inaction to increased emissions, climate change, and the state's concrete injury. The link was sufficiently direct to support standing.
An intervening act breaks the chain when it is unforeseeable or extraordinarily negligent under the applicable test. The Restatement factors examine whether the actor should have realized a third party might act in that manner and whether the intervention was a normal consequence of the original conduct.
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Yes. When the manufacturer adequately warns the prescribing physician, the physician's medical judgment in choosing to prescribe the drug severs the chain absent proof that the warnings were inadequate or misleading.
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Miranda warnings alone do not attenuate the taint. Additional factors such as the temporal proximity of the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct must be weighed to determine whether the chain remains intact.
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Speculative multi-step inferences from local non-economic conduct to aggregate effects on interstate commerce are insufficient. The Court rejects chains that would allow regulation of virtually any crime based on remote economic consequences.
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…authority seems well founded. See Lopez, supra , at 564. The reasoning that petitioners advance seeks to follow the but-for causal chain from the initial occurrence of violent crime (the suppression of which has always been the prime object of the States' police power) to every attenuated effect upon interstate commerce. If…