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KRS 501.060

Causal relationships

Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case Smith v. Commonwealth (1987)

Most recently applied in Powell v. Commonwealth (April 2006)

Effective: January 1, 1975 History: Created 1974 Ky

How often courts cite this section

198719902000200650
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Conduct is the cause of a result when it is an antecedent without which the result in question would not have occurred.

(2) When intentionally causing a particular result is an element of an offense, the element is not established if the actual result is not within the intention or the contemplation of the actor unless:

(a) The actual result differs from that intended or contemplated, as the case may be, only in the respect that a different person or different property is injured or affected or that the injury or harm intended or contemplated would have been more serious or more extensive; or (b) The actual result involves the same kind of injury or harm as that intended or contemplated and occurs in a manner which the actor knows or should know is rendered substantially more probable by his conduct.

(3) When wantonly or recklessly causing a particular result is an element of an offense, the element is not established if the actual result is not within the risk of which the actor is aware or, in the case of recklessness, of which he should be aware unless:

(a) The actual result differs from the probable result only in the respect that a different person or different property is injured or affected or that the probable injury or harm would have been more serious or more extensive than that caused; or (b) The actual result involves the same kind of injury or harm as the probable result and occurs in a manner which the actor knows or should know is rendered substantially more probable by his conduct.

(4) The question of whether an actor knew or should have known the result he caused was rendered substantially more probable by his conduct is an issue of fact.

Official source: Kentucky General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Kentucky statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.