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May 10, 2024 at 0:06 history edited ohwilleke CC BY-SA 4.0
added 31 characters in body
May 10, 2024 at 0:02 comment added JustWilliam This is a very good answer.
S May 9, 2024 at 20:52 history suggested CGCampbell CC BY-SA 4.0
page describing the 'but-for cause-in-fact' test
May 9, 2024 at 12:14 comment added CGCampbell I also had trouble (and didn't know about, as IANAL) parsing the but for cause statement in the answer, so I've linked a Wikipedia page describing it. If you search for "but-for cause-in-fact" you'll see a number of links, including Westlaw that do a pretty good job at layman's description. (Soon as the edit is approved anyway.)
May 9, 2024 at 12:12 review Suggested edits
S May 9, 2024 at 20:52
May 7, 2024 at 16:30 comment added Barmar The car was almost 10 years old. It seems more likely that the wiring problem occurred due to normal (or perhaps excessive) wear and tear than a manufacturing defect. I'm not sure how the owner would know about it unless it was causing other symptoms.
May 7, 2024 at 12:34 comment added JMac Considering that the car seems to have faulty wiring, and it was starting to rain, I'd think even if you knew there was a wiring issue, closing the door is still seems more reasonable than leaving it open an potentially exposing damaged electrical systems to water.
May 7, 2024 at 10:00 comment added preferred_anon @gidds Short answer: I don't know ("suspect" really means suspect in my first comment!). Longer answer: "cause-in-fact" (with quotes) does return results in google that suggest it can be a set phrase. I think either reading you say makes sense (and they have the same meaning).
May 7, 2024 at 9:57 comment added gidds @preferred_anon Ah, that helps.  And is ‘in fact’ being used as an interpolation (which could be set off e.g. with commas), or is ‘cause in fact’ a set phrase (which could be e.g. hyphenated or quoted)?
May 7, 2024 at 9:51 comment added preferred_anon @gidds I suspect it is a reference to the but-for test. As in, "the fire would not have occurred but for the closing of the door". A hyphen in but-for probably would have helped.
May 7, 2024 at 8:35 comment added gidds “…been the but for cause in fact for…” — are any words missing/mistyped there?  Or if that makes sense, can any punctuation be added to help parse it?
May 7, 2024 at 1:48 comment added ohwilleke @bdb484 I looked at a different causation analysis, but that works too.
May 7, 2024 at 0:48 comment added bdb484 I think you could look at it as a causation problem, too. If Fred hadn't closed the door, the owner probably would have anyway, leading to all the same damages.
May 7, 2024 at 0:23 history answered ohwilleke CC BY-SA 4.0