Causal Relationship Between Theory, Tort Law In The United States

With the development of modern science.cause theory has got a great potantial of researching,but also complicate the cause and the determination of cause.In American law,they use bifuracted approach:cause-in-fact and legal cause.Cause-in-fact is used to determine that if defendant's act is actually the cause of the damage.and if there no defendant's act,the damage will happen or not;Legal cause is concerned by legal policy,used to limit the responsibility to get justice,equity and meet the need of society.The theory of Green and Malone,and their debate can explain what cause-in-fact is.Green brought "duty-risk analysis" theory which separate cause into two parts:cause-in-fact and duty.Though Malone is the supporter of "duty-risk analysis" theory,he is not agree with Green.He supposes that cause-in-fact is not the pure fact,it should include legal policy.The biggest disagreement between Green and Malone is whether cause-in-fact includes legal policy or not.l suppose separating value-judgement completely from fact is not realistic,but the theory of Green is an available tool of analysis for operating the law.The criterions of cause-in-fact includes:A,but for rule,it means if there is no act no damage,than this act is the cause of damage,vice versa.B, substantial factor theory,it means the act of defendant must be the substantial factor of damage,if the defendant never did that,the damage still happened,then it's not the substantial factor. C,mutiple causes theory,t means a few causes which act at the same time cause the damage,both of them are the cause-in-fact. For example.Lily and Lucy caused the damage together,but if u look it separately,it's possible but not sure that Lily could cause the damage,and it's also possible but not sure that Lucy could cause the damage.Only were they working together can cause the damage.D, market share theory,it fits product liabiliity,and American law developed substantial share of the relevant market rule.That means when the judge cannot be sure which producer's product cause the damage.then every producer who produces this product shares the responsibility according to the market quotient they have been taken.E,theory of recuced chance,it fits medical accidents and is a branch of substantial factor theory.Legal cause, also called proximate cause,limit the liability.lt should incluce:A,it is part of cause-in-fact,that means it has to fit every criterion of cause-in-fact.B,valuation,it is the root of legal cause and should be considered through all the judgement.C,the criterions of legal cause developing from the consideration of legal policy.Legal policy is related to common interests and social fundamentals,it reflects the whole aim of society or group.The goal of it is to update the benefits of all the members of society.This article discusses the way policy influences duty in four aspects:different rules of legal duty; the factors which can limit the duty; the formula of cause in lawsuit; the undertaking of provement responsibility.The criterions of proximate cause include:A,direct cause test,it means actor only responses to the damage which is caused by his/her direct act,no metter the damage is forseeable or not.lt includes two meanings:the actor is only responsible for what causes the damage directly,and no substitute between cause and damage; only if the act causes the damage directly,no metter the damage can be forseen or not,the proximate cause is the act. B,foressablility,it means a reasonable adult should response to the damage which can be forseen by a person who is reasonable and has common sense,and no metter this person actually forsee it or not.That means the actor is only responsible for possible damage judging by common sense not by possibilities.Remoteness doctrine is the other coin side of proximate cause.It can rule out those factors which are not belong to legal causes which proximate cause cannot separate. In fact,it is the choice of legal policy.And the funcion of it is to limit the duty on the basis of proximate cause.Remoteness doctrine is the reflection of legal policy in causaion. The choices include:excluding the intervening factors,avoiding mutiple compensations of the same damage,avoiding huge number of cases,excluding indirect losts.And this article using "unpopular defendants" as example to discuss four aspects above.At last this article suggests that the bifuracted approach, criterions of cause-in-fact and legal cause,the choices of legal policy in remoteness doctrine is available for Chinese cause system.