Case Study

[Name of the institute]Case Study

Answer to Question 1

Difference between Proximate Cause and Cause in Fact

There are two tests that are employed and used by the court in order to determine the issue related to the proximate cause. The first method that the court uses for determination of the proximate cause is known as but for test. The implementation of “but for” test simply put the question as “but for the actions of the defendant, would the injuries of plaintiff still have occurred. This test is utilized very rarely by the courts today. The main reason behind this is that behind the severity of any injury there always remain a number of factors and multiple variables involved. For many situations “but for” tests seems to be inappropriate. Another test that is used for the proximity cause is substantial factor analysis. This technique of substantial factor analysis examines whether the actions of the defendant is a substantial factor in causing the injuries to the plaintiff (Walston-Dunham, 2011).

In this case, Lennie cannot be regarded as the substantial cause because it was not him who shot the first police officer rather it was that drunken girl. The problem with this case is that determination of the substantial cause is very dubious as all the actions were taken place in series and in a chain. There are various instances in which injury occurs and it becomes difficult to gauge the cause of injury. In cases where it is difficult to gauge the cause then in such cases it becomes difficult to prove the proximate cause. In this case of Lennie too, it is way too difficult to prove the substantial cause.

If we implement the cause in fact test on this case then the first question to be asked in this test would be that “was Lennie negligence the “but for” cause of the death of the police officer?” This simply means inquiring that is it the case that if Lennie had not acted negligently, police officer's death would not have occurred? The answer to this question is no. It was not Lennie whose negligence has caused the death of the police officer rather it was the negligence of the young drunk girl. Now the next step is to ask the question whether there were a number of factors involved in this case or not. The answer to this question is yes because there were a number of factors involved (Walston-Dunham, 2011). Once this is established that there was a number of factors involved causing harm to the plaintiff then again the question would be asked was the negligence of Lennie is the main cause for the damage that occurred to the plaintiff. The answer to this question is no. Thus it is proved that the negligence of Lennie is not the main cause for the death of the first police officer. Lennie cannot be held liable for this death of the officer. It is that girl who is responsible. Lennie was just doing ...