[2025] UKUT 289 (AAC)

The law of causation involves a search for the distinction between causes that are legally relevant and irrelevant. This was explained by Lord Hughes and Lord Toulson JJSC in a passage under the heading “‘But for’ cause and legal cause” in R v Hughes [2013] 1 WLR 2461 at [23]

“The law has frequently to confront the distinction between “cause” in the sense of a sine qua non without which the consequence would not have occurred, and “cause” in the sense of something which was a legally effective cause of that consequence. The former, which is often conveniently referred to as a “but for” event, is not necessarily enough to be a legally effective cause. If it were, the woman who asked her neighbour to go to the station in his car to collect her husband would be held to have caused her husband’s death if he perished in a fatal road accident on the way home. In the case law there is a well-recognised distinction between conduct which sets the stage for an occurrence and conduct which on a common sense view is regarded as instrumental in bringing about the occurrence. There is a helpful review of this topic in the judgment of Glidewell LJ in Galoo Ltd v Bright Grahame Murray [1994] 1 WLR 1360. Amongst a number of English and Commonwealth cases of high authority, he cited at pp 1373—1374 the judgment of the High Court of Australia in March v E & MH Stramare Pty Ltd (1991) 171 CLR 506, 515, in which Mason CJ emphasised that it is wrong to place too much weight on the “but for” test to the exclusion of the “common sense” approach which the common law has always favoured, and that ultimately the common law approach is not susceptible to a formula.”

In its “helpful review” of the topic in Galoo Ltd v Bright Grahame Murray [1994] 1 WLR 1360, the Court of Appeal referred to the following authorities: