Causation

The MBE almost always splits causation into its two separate prongs and makes you spot which one fails. The classic “tell”: the defendant clearly breached, yet an answer says “not liable” — the trap is whether you fault cause-in-fact (would the harm have happened anyway?) or proximate cause (was this harm and this plaintiff within the foreseeable risk?). Under proximate cause, foreseeability of the type and manner of harm controls — but the extent need not be foreseeable, because the eggshell-skull rule takes the plaintiff as found. (The Restatement (Third) reframes proximate cause as “scope of liability” — harm within the risk that made the conduct tortious — though most bar answers still use the foreseeability vocabulary.)

Students conflate causation with the other elements. Breach is about conduct; causation is about consequences — a defendant can drive recklessly yet escape liability if a freak event, not the speeding, produced the crash. Don’t confuse it with damages, which asks how much, not whether the act caused the injury. Memory hook: “but-for” tests connection, “proximate” tests fairness. Foreseeable intervening forces (rescuers, ordinary negligence, subsequent medical malpractice) are dependent and keep the chain intact; superseding causes — the unforeseeable or extraordinary ones — cut it off.