(a) That's right. Simply identifying that the defendant's negligence was a cause of the plaintiff's harm, can make it very difficult to decide exactly where the effect of a defendant's conduct finally ends. This means that defendants are potentially liable for all the future consequences of their acts. However, courts place a limit on this potentially very wide liability, by using the concept of foreseeability. Under the concept of remoteness of harm, a defendant is liable for the harm that results from a breach of a duty of care owed to the plaintiff only if the kind of harm or consequence was reasonably foreseeable as a result of the breach. Any kind of harm which was not reasonably foreseeable is said to be too remote to be recoverable as it falls outside the scope of the defendant’s liability.
In this case, Viscount Simmonds said it was difficult to understand why any distinction between 'immediate physical consequences' and 'other consequences' should be drawn, or where the line between them would lie. He similarly criticised an attempt to distinguish between 'immediate or precipitating causes' and other causes of harm. So, as far as causation goes, defendants are potentially liable for all the future consequences of their acts. But you will see in the next section that limits are placed on this potentially very wide liability by the concept of foreseeability.