concausa

Concausa is a legal term used in civil and tort law to describe an intervening or superseding cause that interrupts the causal chain between a party’s conduct and an injury. The word comes from Latin, with con- meaning together and causa meaning cause, and it is employed in several European jurisdictions to analyze liability for harm.

In practice, a concausa arises when an independent event or factor occurs after the defendant’s act and becomes the true source of the harm, or when the intervening event severes the link between the initial conduct and the injury. Depending on jurisdiction and context, the presence of a concausa can relieve or reduce the original actor’s liability, particularly if the intervening event was unforeseeable, extraordinary, or outside the defendant’s control. Foreseeability, voluntariness, and the nature of the intervening event are common criteria in evaluating whether a concausa applies.

Concausa is distinct from causa concorrente (concurrent cause), where two or more factors contribute to the harm and liability may be allocated between the parties. Jurisdictions vary in applying concausa: some treat certain intervening factors as breaking the chain of causation entirely, while others allocate fault proportionally or preserve some liability for the original actor.

See also: intervening cause, superseding cause, chain of causation, proximate cause, contributory negligence. The term is most common in continental civil-law traditions and appears in translations of those systems into English, where it is often discussed alongside other causation concepts.