If, however, Event X would have happened in the absence of one factor BUT would not have happened in the absence of, say, any 3 of them, has each of one those factors “caused” Event X? None of them satisfy the “but for” test, but all contribute (and that I think is the question the Supreme Court had to decide). What if there are not 5 factors, but 5,000, the absence of any 3,000 of which would have prevented Event X happening? Does any one factor cause Event X?

Regarding their decision, the Supreme Court did not look at the word “because” out of context. They looked at the statute and what it was trying to implement; they looked at other phrases used by legislators. They would not, I think, deny that “because” can be used in the ways Neal suggests (though it is not clear in all cases which meaning the passages he quotes are using, further to my first point) – they just decided that, in this statute, that was not the meaning intended.

If the Court were right, it would follow that in sentences where because appears, there could only be one because per result. Because if there were two becauses, with each one referring to a separate cause, neither one would be a but-for cause. And if because really means beBUT_FORcause, the sentence would be self-contradictory.

But it turns out that people don’t limit themselves to one because per result, as these examples from the web show:

For years I’ve been an avid canner. Not because I have an orchard and need to do something with the bushels and bushels of apricots, but because I love stashing stuff away for another day, and because I never buy what I actually need at the market–I always end up buying what looks good. [link]

I used to drink tons of coffee, and I was a chocoholic LOL!!!! It was pretty agonizing to go off of all caffeine, but I did it because of panic attacks, and because of high blood pressure. [link]

Timing technology advances is critical to survival. Temple says he’s just switched from Avid to Final Cut Studio. “I did it because of cost and because Avid hasn’t been very innovative recently. [link]

They did it because they didn’t care, and because they didn’t know the difference between right and wrong. [link]

These sentences don’t seem self-contradictory, do they? And of course there’s this:

Now your dancing child with the Chinese suit
He spoke to me I took his flute
No I wasnt very cute to him, was I?
But I did it because he lied,
Because he took you for a ride,
And because time was on his side
And because I

Many more examples can be found by running this Google search (keeping the quotation marks):

“it because * and because”

Or try this search in Westlaw:

(“did it because” “did so because” “do so because” “so hold because” “said so because”) +10 “and because”}

Chris

I think this particular statute could validly be read either way. If I was a legislator, I would say that in the context of a discrimination statute it would make sense to apply the “but for” test, simply to be consistent with the principle that a person should be restored so far as possible to the position that they would have been in had the tort not been committed. However, I can appreciate the policy justification for the other view too, and I suspect that how one reads the statute’s “natural” meaning depends largely on what one favours from a policy perspective.