Proximate Cause vs. But-For Causation in Georgia: What Is the Difference?
On this page
Georgia requires both. As the Court of Appeals put it in Reed v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co. (2014), quoting the Supreme Court of Georgia, “a plaintiff must prove that the defendant’s negligence was both the ’cause in fact’ and the ‘proximate cause’ of the injury”. Cause in fact is the but-for question: the defendant’s conduct “is not a cause of the event, if the event would have occurred without it”. Proximate cause is a legal limit: even an actual cause can be “too remote for the law to countenance recovery”, and Georgia’s damages statutes draw that line between results that are “legal and natural” and those that are “only the imaginary or possible result” of the wrong.
The two tests side by side
| Cause in fact (but-for) | Proximate cause | |
|---|---|---|
| The question | Would the injury have happened without the defendant's conduct? | Is the injury close enough to the conduct for the law to impose liability? |
| Georgia formulation | The conduct "is not a cause of the event, if the event would have occurred without it" (Reed, quoting Ogletree v. Navistar, 2000) | "That which, in the natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by other causes, produces an event, and without which the event would not have occurred" (Reed, quoting Zwiren v. Thompson, 2003) |
| Statutory language | Stated in case law, as in Reed | Damages that are "the legal and natural result of the act done, though contingent to some extent, are not too remote" (§ 51-12-9); damage that is "only the imaginary or possible result of a tortious act", or where "other and contingent circumstances preponderate in causing the injury", is too remote (§ 51-12-8) |
| How it is resolved | On the evidence of what would have happened without the conduct | As a jury question, "upon mixed considerations of logic, common sense, justice, policy, and precedent" (Reed, quoting Zwiren) |
Intervening acts
A proximate-cause dispute can turn on something that happened between the defendant’s conduct and the injury. Reed quotes the rule that the “causal connection between an original act of negligence and injury to another is not broken by the ‘intervening’ act of a third person, if the nature of such intervening act was such that it could reasonably have been anticipated or foreseen by the original wrongdoer”. Reed also quotes Delta Airlines v. Townsend (2005): proximate cause “is a policy decision that, for a variety of reasons, e.g., intervening act, the defendant’s conduct and the plaintiff’s injury are too remote for the law to countenance recovery”.
Foreseeability of the injury itself
In Transcontinental Carriers, Inc. v. Bennett (Ga. Ct. App. Sept. 9, 2026), the Court of Appeals quoted the Supreme Court’s decision in McEntyre v. Sam’s East (2022): liability requires “evidence that the injuries were proximately caused by the [defendant’s] breach of the duty”, with the injuries being “the probable or natural consequence of that breach” and “reasonably … anticipated, apprehended, or foreseen”. In Bennett, the defendants argued that a truck’s impact with a guardrail was “too minor” to cause the driver’s spinal cord injury. The court held that this was for the jury, not the judge, because it went to fault.
Where causation is proved
- Medical testimony linking the specific injury to the event, ruling out prior conditions and later events.
- Reconstruction or other evidence of the mechanism, such as speeds, forces, and sequence.
- Evidence on any intervening act and whether it could reasonably have been foreseen.
How causation fits with duty, breach, and damages is explained in the four elements of a Georgia negligence claim.
Sources
- O.C.G.A. §§ 51-12-8, 51-12-9 (text as published in October 2016 on a mirror site; no amendment recorded in the 2022 to 2026 legislative summaries).
- Reed v. Carolina Casualty Insurance Co., 327 Ga. App. 130 (2014)
- Transcontinental Carriers, Inc. v. Bennett, No. A26A1643 (Ga. Ct. App. Sept. 9, 2026)
General information about Georgia law as of October 2026. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.