판결 이유
For the purposes of criminal responsibility for homicide, the defendant's original act need not be the sole or even the main cause of death. Provided the original wound is still an operating and substantial cause of death at the time the victim dies, the causal link is established. A subsequent medical intervention — even one that is negligent or mistaken — does not break the chain of causation unless it is so overwhelming as to make the original wound merely part of the history and no longer a cause of death at all. Ordinary negligence by medical staff does not sever the chain.
사실관계
A soldier stabbed another soldier. On the way to the medical station, the victim was dropped twice. The medical officer, not realising the lung had been pierced, gave treatment that made the victim's condition worse. The victim died.
판결 요약
The Courts-Martial Appeal Court (Lord Parker CJ, Hilbery J, and Donovan J) dismissed the appeal and upheld the murder conviction. Private Smith had stabbed Private Creed in a barrack-room fight, piercing his lung. On the way to the medical station Creed was dropped by stretcher-bearers twice. The medical officer, unaware of the lung injury, administered treatment (including saline infusion) which was contraindicated and may have hastened death. Creed died. Smith argued the negligent treatment had broken the chain of causation. The court rejected this. Lord Parker CJ held that causation in criminal law required only that the original act remained an 'operating and substantial cause' of death. If the wound and its effects were still active contributors to death, the defendant remained liable. Only if the wound had become merely part of the medical history — entirely overshadowed by an independent intervening event that was itself the overwhelming cause of death — would the chain be broken. Here, the lung wound was the continuing operative cause; the negligent treatment exacerbated it but did not transform the causal picture. Smith's conviction was upheld. The case is the leading authority for the 'operating and substantial cause' test in homicide causation, contrasting with the 'palpably wrong' treatment exception later articulated in R v Cheshire [1991].
주요 인용문
"If at the time of death the original wound is still an operating cause and a substantial cause, then the death can properly be said to be the result of the wound, albeit that some other cause of death is also operating."
— Lord Parker CJ at 42
"The question is whether the wound inflicted by the defendant was the cause of death, not whether it was the only cause. If it was an operating and substantial cause, that is sufficient."
— Lord Parker CJ at 43
"Only if it can be said that the original wound was merely the setting in which another cause operated could it be said that the death resulted from that other cause."
— Lord Parker CJ at 43
후속 처리
Followed as the leading authority on causation in homicide. Applied in R v Malcherek; R v Steel [1981] 1 WLR 690 (CA), where switching off a life-support machine did not break the chain of causation from the original injuries inflicted by the defendants.
Applied and developed in R v Cheshire [1991] 1 WLR 844 (CA), which refined the test: only where medical treatment was so independent and so potent a cause of death that the defendant's acts could properly be regarded as 'insignificant' would the chain be broken — setting a high threshold consistent with Smith.
Distinguished in R v Jordan (1956) 40 Cr App R 152, where the Court of Criminal Appeal held the chain was broken because the wound had nearly healed and the immediate cause of death was clearly the negligent medical treatment (abnormal dose of antibiotic), making the wound merely historical.
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