Also known as: proximate cause approach · proximate cause · legal causation
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A doctrinal method that imposes liability only when a party's own act or omission is a proximate cause of the harm rather than imputing responsibility through relationship alone.
Paula Pierce allowed her twelve-year-old son to drive the family car after he had been caught speeding the week before. The son lost control and struck a pedestrian. Because Paula's decision to entrust the vehicle constituted a proximate cause of the collision, she faces personal liability for the resulting injuries.
Pierre Poulin approved a surveillance plan from the agency's Washington office that directed agents abroad to detain a suspect. The detention produced injury on foreign soil. The domestic approval was sufficiently connected to the harm to support liability under the proximate causation approach.
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Pavel Petrov and an accomplice robbed a store. The victim, who had a hidden heart ailment, suffered a fatal attack during the confrontation. Because the robbery remained the direct causal result of the death, the felony-murder rule attached under the proximate causation approach.
Patriot Insurance suffered losses after Sedima engaged in a pattern of mail and wire fraud. The predicate acts formed the direct causal link to the injury, satisfying the proximate causation approach required for a civil RICO recovery.
The approach requires proof that a parent's own negligent act, such as entrustment or supervision failure, was a proximate cause of the child's tort. Mere status as a parent does not create liability.
Yes. Liability attaches only if the misdemeanor itself remains a proximate cause of death. An unforeseeable superseding act by the victim or third parties can sever the required causal link.
The approach requires that the felony be the direct causal result of the death. Predisposing conditions of the victim do not break the chain unless they are the sole substantial factor.
Domestic planning must be sufficiently close to the foreign harm to make it reasonable to trace liability back to the headquarters conduct.
…or omissions in the United States and the resulting damage or injury in a foreign country"). Recognizing this connection of proximate cause between domestic behavior and foreign harm or injury is not, however, sufficient of itself to bar application of the foreign country exception to a claim resting on that same foreign…