In observable reality, all events have causes. The causes of events may be objective or subjective in character.
Objective causality operates independently of the will of a subject. Subjective causality occurs when a subject initiates a cause.
Responsibility arises when a subject initiates a cause that brings about subsequent consequences, regardless of the subject’s subjective assessment of the nature of those consequences.
Handing an item or an assignment over to another person does not automatically transfer responsibility for all subsequent actions.
The person who accepts an item or assignment for work performs an independent act of choice at the moment of acceptance and thereby becomes an independent source of causality.
The responsibility of the person who transferred the item or assignment is limited to the circumstances of the transfer and the information provided.
The responsibility of the person who accepted the item or assignment arises upon acceptance and extends to the consequences of actions performed by that person within their own competence and under their control.
Responsibility is not “passed along a chain”: it arises anew each time wherever there is freedom of choice and corresponding competence.
After a customer hands over an item, the service provider decides whether to accept it for work, independently determines how to solve the task, which methods to use, and the order of operations, exercises full control over the process of performing the work, and directly influences its result.
Each action of the service provider during performance of the work is the result of their own choice, based on their competence, knowledge, and skills. The consequences of such actions are not strictly determined and cannot be reduced exclusively to the action of objective factors.
By virtue of this, the service provider acts as an independent source of causality. Consequently, under the definition of responsibility, responsibility for actions performed in the course of the work, and for their consequences, lies with the service provider.
Where a subject’s actions are based on their own competence and free choice, responsibility for those actions and their consequences cannot be placed on another person.
Risk
The definition of the concept is given in the separate article Risk: risk is a possible future state distinguished by a subject as unfavorable to the achievement of their goal.
Risk and responsibility are interconnected. Risk is uncertainty generated by a subject’s choices. Accepting risk on behalf of another person is impossible if the subject is not the source of the decisions generating the corresponding uncertainty.
Fraudulent substitution always occurs at the same point: risk is substituted with uncertainty of the result. The subject is told that the result is complex or uncertain. Yet this constitutes a logical error because the subject is not the source of that uncertainty.
Consent has meaning exclusively in relation to what is under the subject’s control. A subject may agree to hand over an item, pay for work, wait for a result, and accept the fact that the result may vary. Yet a subject cannot agree to be the source of someone else’s errors, cannot bear responsibility for someone else’s decisions, and cannot become the bearer of risk for the actions and choices of another subject unknown to them.
Risk cannot be accepted by a subject if the source of uncertainty is outside their control and outside their choice.
Risk follows choice, not the result.
Bad Faith
Any attempt by a subject to shift responsibility and risk for their own actions or decisions onto another person constitutes a form of bad-faith conduct, because it expresses the subject’s refusal to recognize themselves as the source of causality they initiated.
Under Article 1(3) of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, when establishing, exercising, and protecting civil rights, as well as fulfilling civil obligations, participants in civil-law relationships are required to act in good faith.
The requirement of good faith must also be observed at the stage of formulating contractual terms and offers, and when allocating rights, duties, responsibility, and risks between the parties.
Consequently, the inclusion in contractual arrangements of provisions aimed at eliminating or transferring a subject’s responsibility and risks for actions they performed while possessing freedom of choice, competence, and control over the process contradicts the requirement of good-faith conduct.
Under Article 1(4) of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, no one may derive an advantage from their unlawful or bad-faith conduct.
Consequently, the use of contractual terms formulated in violation of the good-faith requirement and aimed at eliminating or transferring a subject’s responsibility for their own actions cannot give that subject legal advantages and must be legally assessed as impermissible.
