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Causal Primacy and Comparative Fault

The Effect of Position in a Causal Chain on Judgments of Legal Responsibility

University of California, Davis

Keith H. Ogawa

University of California, Davis

Ann Delforge

University of California, Davis

Diane Early

University of California, Davis

This study examined the effect of the relative position of two events in a causal chain on the perceived legal responsibility of parties to a lawsuit. Subjects read two legal controversies. Each involved an injury that had occurred because two different parties, one associated with Event A and one associated with Event B, had each been negligent. With the facts otherwise held constant, the relative position of the two events in the causal chain producing the outcome was varied. In one scenario, either a demonstration (Event A),prompted a libelous newspaper article (Event B), leading to financial and emotional harm to the plaintiff, or the article prompted the demonstration. In the second scenario, a dog jumped a fence either before or after being teased by a boy, who was subsequently bitten by the dog. Results indicated that the relative negligence, liability, and financial responsibility attributed to the party associated with an event were greater when that event was the prior cause.

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