Proximate Cause in Personal Injury Accidents in Los Angeles

Proximate cause is a legal test where the actions must have caused a foreseeable result.  Specifically, there must be a steady-stream of continuous events that produces an injury without any intervening causes.  Therefore, for there to be proximate cause, one must inquire whether you would have suffered personal injuries had some action or inaction occurred.

Essentially, this is a legal doctrine that states for every action, there is a series of events which naturally results.  For example, if you throw a ball up in the air, it is foreseeable that the ball will come back down and land.  For someone to be responsible where proximate cause is analyzed, normally the last person in the chain who caused the injuries is the person who is held responsible.  Continuing the ball example, if after the ball lands on the ground, someone else picks it up and throws it at a pedestrian, it is clearly the person who picked the ball up and threw it who is responsible for causing the injuries - not the person who initially threw it in the air.  It was therefore not foreseeable that after you threw the ball up in the air that someone else would pick it up and throw it.  On the other hand, if you threw the ball up in the air and the ball then hit the pedestrian in the head causing injuries, this would be foreseeable.

The legal doctrine of proximate cause was created to limit the liability of people who were too far away from causing the injuries, even though it could be argued that they were the person who initially "got the ball rolling."

If you would like to discuss the events of your personal injury case, and would like help determining who should be held accountable for your injuries, please give us a call at 800-715-4489.