Actual Cause, or “Cause-in-Fact”
Actual cause means that the injury would not have happened but for the defendant’s actions. In simpler terms, you must show that the defendant’s conduct was a necessary link in the chain of events that led to your harm.
Here's an example:
A delivery driver runs a red light and crashes into another car. If the driver had obeyed the traffic signal, the crash would not have occurred. The driver’s decision to run the red light is the actual cause of the accident.
This part of causation asks: Did the defendant’s behavior set the injury in motion? If the answer is yes, then actual cause is usually satisfied.
Proximate Cause, or “Legal Cause”
Proximate cause is more complicated. It focuses not just on whether the defendant’s actions led to the injury, but whether the type of harm that occurred was reasonably foreseeable. The law doesn’t require a defendant to anticipate every bizarre or unlikely consequence of their actions, but it does hold them accountable for harms that any reasonable person could expect to happen.
An example of how this works:
A store fails to clean up a large spill in the middle of an aisle. Hours later, a customer slips, falls, and breaks their hip. That kind of injury is a foreseeable consequence of not cleaning up a dangerous hazard. The store’s inaction is the proximate cause of the customer’s injury.
However, if something truly unforeseeable happens, like a random third party intervenes in an unusual way, that can sometimes break the chain of causation and relieve the defendant of legal responsibility.
Why Causation Matters in Personal Injury Law
You can’t just show that someone did something wrong. You must prove that their wrongful act directly resulted in your injuries. Even if the defendant was careless, they are not legally liable unless their actions caused your harm.
This is where many personal injury cases are won or lost. Insurance companies and defense lawyers often admit that something went wrong but then argue that their client didn’t actually cause the injury. They might say the injuries came from a pre-existing condition, from the plaintiff’s own actions, or from some unrelated event.
That’s why it’s critical to work with a legal team that knows how to establish both actual and proximate cause with clear, compelling evidence, as well as anticipate the defenses that might be raised against you.
Establishing Causation Often Requires Expert Testimony
In many complex cases—especially those involving medical malpractice, product defects, or multi-vehicle accidents—proving causation requires expert witnesses.
These are professionals with specialized training who can explain things like:
- How an injury occurred (e.g., accident reconstruction experts)
- Whether a medical error caused a worsened outcome
- Whether a faulty design or component led to a failure
- How a particular action or inaction contributed to a workplace accident
Judges and juries often rely on expert testimony to understand the link between negligence and injury. Without it, proving causation can be incredibly difficult, even in cases where the harm is obvious.
What If There Are Multiple Causes?
Sometimes more than one party is responsible for an injury. Many states recognize that multiple people can share fault and that each may have played a role in causing the harm. These states follow what are known as comparative negligence rules, which allow you to recover compensation even if you were partly at fault.
Even if the defendant wasn’t the only cause of your injury, you can still recover compensation in Texas, as long as their actions were a substantial factor in what happened. Keep in mind that Texas follows a modified comparative fault system, so if you’re found to be more than 50% responsible, you may be barred from recovering any damages.
How Arnold & Itkin Can Help
If you’ve been injured and you believe someone else’s negligence was involved, you shouldn’t be left guessing whether it’s possible to prove that their negligence was the cause of your injury. That’s our job. At Arnold & Itkin, we’ve handled hundreds of high-stakes personal injury cases involving disputed causation—cases where companies tried to shift blame, downplay injuries, or claim our clients caused their own harm.
We work with industry-leading experts, dig deep into the evidence, and build airtight cases that clearly show how and why our clients were hurt. When necessary, we take these cases to trial—and we win. If you have questions about how causation might affect your case, contact us for a free consultation. We’ll walk you through your options, explain the law, and fight to make sure the people who caused your injury are held accountable.
Reach us online or call our office at (888) 493-1629. You don’t pay anything unless we win for you.
