Pilarinos v The Queen

Pilarinos was the applicant in proceedings before the High Court of Australia, appealing against a decision of the Supreme Court of Queensland. The dispute concerned the applicant's conviction for the offence of dangerous driving occasioning death.

The High Court was required to determine whether the trial judge had erred in law by failing to direct the jury adequately on the element of causation, specifically in relation to the defence of novus actus interveniens. The applicant argued that the jury should have been instructed that if the deceased's own actions were a substantial and operative cause of their death, then the applicant's dangerous driving could not be the cause of death.

The High Court held that the trial judge's directions on causation were sufficient. Their Honours explained that the jury had been directed to consider whether the applicant's driving was a cause of death, and that the question of whether any intervening act broke the chain of causation was implicitly covered by this direction. The legal principle applied was that causation in criminal law requires the prosecution to prove that the accused's conduct was a cause of the prohibited consequence, and that this cause was not rendered inoperative by some intervening event. The appeal was dismissed.