PJC General Negligence 2024

W ORKERS ’ C OMPENSATION —D ISABILITY , MMI & I MPAIRMENT

PJC 23.10

PJC 23.10 Producing Cause—Definition “Producing cause” means a cause that is a substantial factor in bringing about an injury, and without which the injury would not have occurred. There may be more than one producing cause. COMMENT When to use. PJC 23.10 may be used in accidental injury, repetitious trauma, or occupational disease cases in which an injury is alleged to extend to produce entitle ment to benefits. See generally PJC 23.1 and chapter 25 in this volume. Source of definition. “Though the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act does not use the phrase ‘producing cause,’ this has been the standard for proving causation in workers’ compensation claims for more than eighty years.” Transcontinental Insur ance Co. v. Crump , 330 S.W.3d 211, 221 (Tex. 2010). The Crump court observed that the element common to both proximate cause and producing cause is actual causation in fact, which requires proof that an act or omis sion was a substantial factor in bringing about injury that would not otherwise have occurred. Relying on Ford Motor Co. v. Ledesma , 242 S.W.3d 32 (Tex. 2007), a prod ucts liability case, the court held that producing cause and cause in fact are conceptu ally identical: Defining producing cause as being a substantial factor in bringing about an injury, and without which the injury would not have occurred, is easily understood and conveys the essential components of producing cause that (1) the cause must be a substantial cause of the event in issue and (2) it must be a but-for cause, namely one without which the event would not have occurred. Crump , 330 S.W.3d at 223 (quoting Ledesma , 242 S.W.3d at 46). The court concluded that “the producing cause inquiry in workers’ compensation cases is conceptually no different from the cause in fact inquiry in negligence cases and the producing cause inquiry in other substantive contexts.” Crump , 330 S.W.3d at 223.

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