Proximate cause in a Georgia injury case concerns whether the defendant’s conduct was a close enough cause of the harm to support liability, beyond merely being a cause in fact. The concept limits liability to harms closely enough connected to the conduct.
It reaches past cause in fact. Proximate cause asks not only whether the conduct was a cause of the harm but whether the connection was close enough for the law to impose liability. A cause that set events in motion is not always a proximate one.
Foreseeability often guides it. Whether the harm was a foreseeable result of the conduct frequently bears on whether proximate cause is present, so a harm flowing naturally from the conduct generally satisfies it while a freakish one may not. The reach of liability tracks what could be foreseen. A spark that would ordinarily cause little harm, but for an unforeseeable chain that turned it into a major fire, tests how far the original conduct reaches.
Intervening events can break it. An independent act arising between the conduct and the harm can, in some circumstances, cut off the original conduct as a proximate cause. A foreseeable consequence generally does not break the chain, while an unforeseeable one may.
As a limit on liability, it turns on its reach past cause in fact, the role of foreseeability, and the effect of intervening events. The law stops short of holding a defendant answerable for every distant ripple of an act, and an intervening event no one could have anticipated can sever the link altogether.