Law AS, Causation and Remoteness

Factual Causation -Main starting point, if there is no factual causation, there is no  point in considerng whether there has been causation in law.

-Barnett v Chelsea and Kensington Hospital -Poisoned  watchmen were mis diagnosed, but would have died anyway.

Legal Causation -MPC v Reeves - Police have a duty of care, watching  prisoners on suicide watch.

-Orange v CCWY - Orange was not know to be a suicide risk =  no liablity

Multiple Causes -It's not always straightforward to establish that the defendants  act or ommission caused the loss, or damage.

-Fairchild v Glanhaven Funeral Services - Cancer via  asbestos dust, could sue all previous employers.

Take your victim as you find them -A person's liablity in negligence is not  extinguished or lessened because the  claimant had a pre-existing condition that made the injuries worse.

-Smith v Leech Brain - Small burn from metal  triggered cancer, a condition he was  biologically prone to.

Reasonably foreseeable -The Wagon Mound Case - Spilt oil that  caught alight, damage from oil was  foreseeable, but the fire was not.

Damage Foreseeable -As long as the type of damage is  foreseeable, it does not matter that the form  it takes is unusual.

-Hughes v Lord Advocate - Boys took a  parafin lamp down a unattended manhole,          dropped it and there was and explossion  the risk or burning was likely so this  included even this extreme type of burning.