What is the test for establishing causation in a personal injury action?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from Gillespie v. Yellow Cab Company Ltd., 2014 BCSC 1745 (CanLII):
Causation must be established on a balance of probabilities before damages are assessed. As McLachlin C.J.C. said in Blackwater v. Plint, 2005 SCC 58 at para. 78: … Even though there may be several tortious and non-tortious causes of injury, so long as the defendant’s act is a cause of the plaintiff’s damage, the defendant is fully liable for that damage. The rules of damages then consider what the original position of the plaintiff would have been. The governing principle is that the defendant need not put the plaintiff in a better position than his original position and should not compensate the plaintiff for any damages he would have suffered anyway: [Athey v. Leonati].
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