Opinion ID: 1204855
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Instruction As To Cause Of Death.

Text: It is assigned as error herein that Instruction No. 7, as given by the court, is erroneous. That instruction is as follows: You are instructed that the acts of the accused must cause death in order to constitute murder or manslaughter, but such acts need not be the direct and immediate cause of death. Attention here is directed to the last part of the instruction. We need not enter into a detailed examination of the meaning of direct and immediate cause in various situations. See Words and Phrases under directly and under direct cause and Prosser on Torts, p. 347. We cannot conceive of any situation in this case which the court may have considered as giving rise to the charge relating to direct and immediate cause of death unless it be the lack of providing for medical aid. We shall discuss that matter presently. In the case of Anderson v. Steinle, 289 Ill. App. 167, 6 N.E. (2d) 879, 881, the court stated: The phrase `direct cause' has been held to mean, `the active, efficient cause that sets in motion a train of events which brings about a result without the intervention of any force started and working actively from a new and independent source.' Under this definition, if the cause was not direct, it was remote. In the case of Godwin v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 120 Ga. 747, 48 S.E. 139, 141, the court said: In discussing legal causation, the phrase proximate cause' does not necessarily mean that which is nearest, but referred to as the `immediate and direct' cause, as opposed to `remote.' And the words `proximate,' `immediate,' and `direct' are frequently used as synonymous. Then the foregoing instruction might be construed as meaning that the defendant could be convicted, even though her acts constituted merely a remote cause. Courts do not consider a remote cause as an efficient or proximate cause. Lemos v. Madden, 28 Wyo. 1, 200 P. 791. To say the least the instruction was confusing, leaving the jury to guess at its meaning, and should not have been given in so far as the last part of the sentence of the instruction is concerned without at least further explanation. A cause must be the efficient, commonly called the proximate, cause or it is not a cause at all in law. See 38 Am. Jur. 701, § 54. That is the rule in the law of torts and we see no reason why it should not apply here.