What is the difference between causation in fact & causation in law?

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Factual cause between two events is when you can say that but for the first event, the second event would not have occurred. For instance, today I did something. But for my mother giving birth that would not have happened. However, that is far too broad to leave my mother liable for my acts. So, in tort and criminal law there is a policy recognition that an act must also be the "promimate" or legal cause of the second act. That is a much more narrow definition of cause.
 
Nothing, cause in fact is a type of causation in law, the two different causations are the on in fact, and proximate cause.

Proximate cause is the but for test. But for xxxx, yyyy would not have happened. But for the cold there would be no ice, therefore the cold caused the ice.

Cause in fact is the foreseeability test, coupled with whether or not the person harmed was to be protected.
 
causation in fact is what actually causes something while causation in law is what the proximate cause of something is

in other words, cause is fact is anything that happened in the past (regardless of how far remote) that actually has a direct effect on an occurrence

while cause in law reduces how far back one can go to find a cause, such as if I start a fire but somebody else pours gasoline between my fire and your house and your house burns down....I am not responsible even though my fire is actually responsible for setting your house ablaze...the cause in law is the pouring of the gasoline NOT the setting of the fire which would be a cause in fact
 
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