Law I / The Objective Side: Causation and Imputation
Practice question · Match the pairs

Match each situation to the objective-imputation criterion that resolves it.

  • Deflecting a falling beam so it strikes a shoulder rather than a head
  • Driving carefully within the traffic rules and still causing an accident
  • Supplying a drug to an adult who knowingly takes a dangerous dose
  • A person injured in a crash dies when the ambulance is struck by another vehicle
  • Self-endangerment: the victim freely and knowingly ran the risk
  • Permitted risk: the activity is dangerous and socially tolerated
  • Risk reduction: the conduct diminished an existing danger
  • Atypical causal course: the realised risk was not the one created
Hints
  1. One criterion applies where the conduct made things better, not worse.
  2. Two of the four turn on what the victim or the community accepted.
Show the answer
  • Deflecting a falling beam so it strikes a shoulder rather than a head Risk reduction: the conduct diminished an existing danger
  • Driving carefully within the traffic rules and still causing an accident Permitted risk: the activity is dangerous and socially tolerated
  • Supplying a drug to an adult who knowingly takes a dangerous dose Self-endangerment: the victim freely and knowingly ran the risk
  • A person injured in a crash dies when the ambulance is struck by another vehicle Atypical causal course: the realised risk was not the one created
Why

Reading the four together shows objective imputation is not one test but a family of them, held together by a single question: was this result the realisation of a risk the law forbade this person to create? Each criterion answers no for a different reason.

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