Immediate cause

The last of a series or chain of causes tending to a given result, and which, of itself, and without the intervention of any further cause, directly produces the result or event. A cause may be immediate ini this sense, and yet not "proximate;" and conversely, the proximate cause (that which directly and efficientlv brings about the result) may not be immediate. The familiar illustration is that of a drunken man falling into the water and drowning. His intoxication is the proximate cause of his death, if it can be snid that he would not have fallen into the water when sober; but the immediate cause of death is suffocation by drowning. See Davis v. Standish. 26 Hun (N. Y.), 615 ; Deisenrieter v. Kraus-Merkel Malting Co... 07 Wis. 279. 72 N. W. 735. Compare Longahaugh v. Railroad Co., 9 Nev. 271. See, also, Proximate.

Defined under Immediate in Black's Law Dictionary.