Also known as: injury causation · causation of injury · causation
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An element of a failure-to-disclose claim requiring the plaintiff to prove that the undisclosed risk actually materialized and produced the claimed harm.
Ibrahim Iqbal and Iris Irons each negligently handled chemicals near Ines Ibarra. One spill caused her permanent lung damage, but the evidence could not identify which spill was responsible. Because the harm was indivisible and the plaintiff could not prove which defendant caused it, the court shifted the burden to each defendant to show its conduct was not the cause in fact of the injury.
Isaiah Ishikawa stabbed Ike Ingram during a fight. Ingram lingered for fourteen months before dying from complications of the wound. Even though the stab clearly satisfied but-for causation, the prosecution could not charge homicide because the death occurred after the one-year-and-one-day period had expired.
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Ingrid Innes sued two contractors after a scaffold collapse injured her. The court reviewed the record and determined that a reasonable jury could not differ on whether each contractor's conduct was a substantial factor in causing the injury, so the court resolved the causation question itself rather than sending it to the jury.
Icarus Aviation's CEO killed a key employee who had witnessed safety violations. The prosecution sought to introduce the employee's prior statements. Because the government could not prove the killing was intended to prevent the employee from testifying, the court refused to apply the forfeiture-by-wrongdoing doctrine.
Ideal Solutions sold a medical device to a physician who implanted it in Ibrahim Iqbal. Iqbal suffered an infection the device's label did not warn about. Because Iqbal could not show that a better warning would have changed the physician's prescribing decision, the court held that injury-causation failed under the learned intermediary doctrine.
The plaintiff must show that the undisclosed risk actually materialized and caused the claimed harm. This element is distinct from decision-causation, which focuses on whether the patient would have refused treatment with full disclosure.
Decision-causation asks whether a reasonable patient would have declined treatment if informed of the risk. Injury-causation asks whether that same risk actually occurred and produced the harm the patient now claims.
No. The plaintiff must show that an adequate warning to the physician would have altered the prescribing decision. Generalized awareness of risks is insufficient to establish the required causal link.