Also known as: proximate cause test · proximate causation tests · proximate cause · legal causation test
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A doctrinal test in tort law that limits a negligent defendant's liability to harms that are not highly extraordinary when viewed in hindsight after the event. The test requires both factual causation and a sufficient legal connection so that the particular injury falls within the ordinary scope of risk created by the negligence.
Perry Pratt allowed his teenage son to borrow the family car after the boy had received several speeding tickets. The son drove recklessly and struck a pedestrian. The pedestrian sued Perry for negligent entrustment. The court found that Perry's decision to lend the car was not a proximate cause of the injury because the son's extreme speeding was a highly extraordinary result of the entrustment.
Premier Manufacturing released pollutants from one storage tank over several years. Multiple property owners suffered separate contamination injuries. Under the policy's occurrence definition, the insurer treated all claims as arising from one occurrence because a single proximate, uninterrupted cause produced the harms.
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A court may grant summary judgment when the harm is highly extraordinary in light of the negligence even if factual causation exists. The test cuts off liability for remote sequences that fall outside the ordinary scope of risk created by the defendant's conduct.
No. The defendant need only have created a risk of the general type of harm that occurred. Once that type of harm materializes, the defendant remains liable for all resulting physical consequences even if the precise medical complication or extent was unforeseeable.
An independent actor's negligence does not automatically break the chain. The question remains whether the original defendant's conduct produced a highly extraordinary result when the entire sequence is viewed in hindsight.
…terms of the relevant plan, a particular treatment was not covered, the managed care entity’s denial of coverage would not be a proximate cause of any injuries arising from the denial. Rather, the failure of the plan itself to cover the requested treatment would be the proximate cause.[^maj-3] More significantly, the THCLA clearly…