ABSTRACT
Causation can be a complex and contested area of the law. Meeting the ‘but for’ test is, however, not always sufficient: the claimant also has to show ‘causation in law’ or legal causation. Courts also, however, have to determine what might have happened if events had taken a different course. In particular, courts have to determine what would have happened if the defendant had not been negligent. This is the question at the centre of causation – what would have happened but for the defendant’s negligence – and it is, by its nature, not a historic, objective fact. A problem which has been used as an example to think about issues of multiple causation is the ‘two hunters’ problem’. In one variant of this scenario, two hunters are out hunting when both of them think they see a deer. Using traditional principles of causation, neither of the hunters will be held liable.
