What is the effect of intervening acts in a motor vehicle accident?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Nikkhah v Batin, 2019 BCSC 2223 (CanLII):

Intervening acts, or novus actus interveniens, may operate to break the chain of causation and remove the damage or loss from the realm of reasonable foreseeability. The chain of causation from the defendant’s act will be broken “where an intervening event, rather than the defendants’ conduct, is considered the proximate or legal cause of the subsequent injury. This principle, known as novus actus interveniens, recognizes that defendants should not be held liable for objectively unforeseen consequences of their actions” (Dorsey v. Bhindi, 2016 BCSC 499 at para. 100). Thus, this is still based on principles of foreseeability.

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