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Every causation analysis is twofold. First, the defendant must be the factual or but for cause of the victim’s harm. The butforterm comes from this phrase: “but for the defendant’s act, the harm would not have occurred.” 1 As the Model Penal Code states, “[c]onduct is the cause of a result when…(a) it is an antecedent but for which the result in question would not have occurred” (Model Penal Code § 2.03(1)(a)). Basically, the defendant is the factual or but for cause of the victim’s harm if the defendant’s act starts the chain of events that leads to the eventual result.
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