In negligence, causation requires proving which pair of causes?

• A. Duty and breach
• B. Foreseeability and damages
• C. Actual cause and proximate cause
• D. Causation and sufficiency of evidence

Answer: (C)

Causation in negligence has two parts: actual cause and proximate cause. Actual cause means the injury would not have happened but for the defendant’s conduct (the but-for test). Proximate cause looks at the legal connection between the conduct and the injury—whether the harm was a foreseeable consequence of the conduct and whether any intervening factors would break liability. Together, these elements show both the factual link and the legal responsibility for the harm. For example, if a driver runs a red light and strikes a pedestrian, the injury would not have occurred but for the driver’s action, and the harm is a foreseeable result of running a red light, so proximate cause is met. The other options mix different negligence elements or concepts (duty and breach; foreseeability with damages; or causation with evidentiary sufficiency) and don’t capture the essential two-part test of actual and proximate causation.