The word 'cause' in its ordinary and usual definition may be deemed to mean that which occasions or effects a result.

Explanation

(English-origin maxim.) The legal definition of 'cause' aligns with common understanding: it is that which directly occasions or brings about the result in question, not a remote or speculative antecedent.

Where this applies

• A jury must determine what caused a warehouse fire, and the court instructs them that 'cause' means whatever directly brought about the blaze — the spark that ignited the fuel, not the architect who designed the building decades earlier.
• An insurance adjuster investigates water damage and determines the 'cause' was a burst pipe — the thing that directly occasioned the flooding.
• In a wrongful-death case, the court defines 'cause of death' as the specific event that directly produced the fatal result, not every prior condition the patient ever had.