proximate cause

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

• n. An event which, in a natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces an injury, and without which the injury would not have occurred.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

• n. See under Proximate.
• adj. That which in ordinary natural sequence produces a specific result, no independent disturbing agencies intervening.