In fraud damages, what does proximate cause mean?

• A. Any remote factor that could have caused damages.
• B. The exact amount of damages with no relation to fraud.
• C. The direct, foreseeable link between the fraudulent act and the resulting damages.
• D. A legal defense that denies fraud occurred.

Answer: (C)

Proximate cause in fraud damages means the direct, foreseeable link between the fraudulent act and the resulting damages. It looks at whether the harm flowed from the fraud in a way that a reasonable person could anticipate as a natural consequence of the deceit. If the loss would not have occurred but for the fraud, and it’s a consequence that the fraud-risk created, it’s proximate. If the damage is too remote or caused by an independent intervening factor, there’s no proximate cause and recovery is unlikely.

So, the key idea is foreseeability and a direct connection: the fraud must cause damages in a way that was a natural and probable result of the fraudulent act.