(i) Why (as a matter of principle) do you think this?


"RWW: See quoted text above and Parts I and II of my article, The Grounds
and Extent of Legal Responsibility. Tort liability is liability for having
adversely affected others' equal external freedom through an unjust
interaction. Such an adverse effect has not occurred, no matter how bad the
defendant's conduct and regardless of actual causation and foreseeability
etc., if the plaintiff would have suffered the same injury/harm/loss anyway
due to non-legally-responsible causes. The adverse impact on the
plaintiff's external equal freedom has occurred if the injury would have
occurred anyway due only to other tortious (or otherwise legally
responsible) conditions, which share legal responsibility and liability if
they also were actual (duplicative) causes rather than preempted conditions.
In either case, the plaintiff has suffered a setback to his interests,
caused by the defendant's tortious conduct, for which the defendant luckily
escapes liability only due to the fortuity that the injury would have
happened anyway due to other (duplicative or preempted)
non-legally-responsible conditions. *In such situations, it seems to me*
that the plaintiff should be denied recovery for the injury tortiously
caused by the defendant only if the defendant clearly proves that such
injury would have happened anyway due to non-legally-responsible
conditions."

Rob: But why does this follow? If I accepted all that went before *, but
your conclusion didn't seem to me to follow, how would you prove I was
wrong?

Is "has not occurred" in the third sentence, synonymous with "has not been
caused"?

I still remain of the view if X would have happened anyway, regardless of Y,
Y did not cause X, and that it is at very best counter-intuitive to describe
this as a concern of 'scope of liability' rather than causation.

RWW: And you still remain pretty much alone with this view, given situations
involving causal overdetermination.

Rob: Not in my universe, outside of some legal circles.


Best
Rob