The Law of Intervening Causation

Douglas Hodgson is Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Western Australia. He has published widely on Human Rights law.

Contents: Part I Introduction: Introduction; Early judicial development of intervening causation law. Part II The Legal Tests: Reasonable foreseeability; Unreasonableness/abnormality; Voluntary and deliberate human action; Probability; Scope of risk. Part III Operative Contexts: Intervening negligent acts and omissions; Extraordinary natural phenomena, coincidences and animals; Maritime incidents; The suicide cases; Professional malpractice; Rescue of persons and property; Children; Escaping from danger and inconvenience; Negligence causing susceptibility to later harm; Miscellaneous operative contexts. Part IV Conclusion: The influence of contributory negligence and apportionment legislation on intervening causation issues; The inter-relationship between remoteness of damage and novus actus interveniens; Conclusion; Index.