Efficient Cause
Defined in 2 dictionaries — Cyclopedic (1922), Black's (1910)
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The working cause, or that cause which produces effects or results. Ford v. Hine, etc., Co., 237 111. 469.
Black's Law Dictionary
Henry Campbell Black, M.A. · 1910
The working cause; that cause which produces effects or results; an intervening cause, which produces results which would not have come to pass except for its interposition, and for which, therefore, the person who set in motion the original chain of causes is not responsible. Co.ntral Coal & Iron Co., v. Pearce (Ky.) 80 S. W. 450; Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Laack, 148 III. 242, 32 N. E. 285, 18 L. R. A. 215.