- proximate cause
- As an element of tort liability:–that cause, which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred. The primary moving cause, or the predominating cause, from which the injury follows as a natural, direct, and immediate consequence, and without which it would not have occurred. 38 Am J1st Negl § 50. That act or omission which immediately causes or fails to prevent the injury. Stacy v Williams, 253 Ky 353, 60 SW2d 697. The efficient cause; the one that necessarily sets the other cause in motion, and brings about the result without the intervention of any force started and working actively from a new and independent source. 38 Am J1st Negl § 50. Such cause, not necessarily the last cause or the act nearest to the injury, but such act as actually aided in producing the injury as a direct and efficient cause. Milton Bradley Co. v Cooper, 79 Ga App .302, 53 SE2d 761, 11 ALR2d 1019. As element of liability for wrongful death:–an act which produces the injury and death in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any new, independent cause. 22 Am J2d Death § 31. As an element of recoverable damages in tort cases:–legal cause, something beyond mere cause in fact, something other than a remote cause. That cause which in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, has produced the injuries for which damages are sought to be recovered. 22 Am J2d Damg § 20. As an element of damages in contract cases:–a requirement that gives way to the doctrine of foreseeable or anticipated consequences. 22 Am J2d Damg § 20. Proximate cause has a different meaning in insurance cases than it has in tort cases. In insurance cases the concern is not with the question of culpability or why the injury occurred but only with the nature of the injury and how it happened. If the nearest efficient cause of the loss is one of the perils insured against, the court looks no further. In such cases, the insurer is not relieved from responsibility by showing that the property was brought within the peril insured against by a cause not mentioned in the contract. 29A Am J Rev ed Ins § 1134. See concurrent cause; contributory cause; efficient cause; immediate cause; natural and probable consequences; primary cause; producing or inducing cause.
Ballentine's law dictionary. Anderson, W.S.. 1998.