Causa causans
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 55 U.S. 468 - Philadelphia & Reading Railroad v. Derby · 1852Most cited · 253 citing opinions
The intrusting such a powerful and dangerous engine as a locomotive, to one who will not submit to control, and render implicit obedience to orders, is itself an act of negligence, the ' causa causans ' of the mischief; while the proximate cause, or the ipsa negligentia which produces it, may truly be said, in most cases, to be the disobedience of orders by the servant so intrusted.
How often courts cite the cases defining “Causa causans”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “Causa causans” — 317 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 2 definitions, chronological · 1852–1870
when one of several successive causes is sufficient to produce the effect (for example, to cause a loss), the law will never regard an antecedent cause of that cause, or the 'causa causans.' In such a case there is no doubt which cause is the proximate one within the meaning of the maxim.