These essays illustrate the advantages of 'reflexive' tort scholarship by contrasting the reflexive scholarship of judicial analysis with grand theory, then applying reflexive scholarship to the tort of negligence. The final essay presents a wider argument about human responsibility and legal conduct.

These essays illustrate the advantages of 'reflexive' tort scholarship by contrasting the reflexive scholarship of judicial analysis with grand theory, then applying reflexive scholarship to the tort of negligence. The final essay presents a wider argument about human responsibility and legal conduct.

This book of essays champions tort scholarship that puts judges at centre stage: what they do, how they understand their role, the heterogeneous reasons they give for their decisions, and their constitutional responsibility to identify and articulate the 'living' and 'evolving' common law. This is 'reflexive tort scholarship'. Reflexive tort scholars seek dialogue with Bench and Bar. Their approach is very different from the currently fashionable academic search for 'grand theories' that descriptively assert that tort law is fundamentally 'all about one thing', a unifying idea that alone explains and justifies the whole of tort law. This book illustrates the advantages and pay-offs of the reflexive style of scholarship by showing how it illuminates key features of tort law. The first essay contrasts the reflexive approach with the Grand Theory approach, while the second essay identifies a principle of tort law (the 'cooperative principle'), that is latent in the cases and that vindicates the value of collaborative human arrangements. Identifying this principle calls into question, in disputes between commercial parties, the reasoning used to support one of the most entrenched lines of authority in tort law - that based on the famous case of Hedley Byrne v Heller. The final essay deploys the reflexive method to argue that the iconic 'but-for' test of factual causation is inadequate and narrower than the concept actually utilized in the cases. Application of the method also prompts a reassessment of the 'scope of duty' concept and of the appropriate characterisation of the much-discussed decision in SAAMCO. These essays, based on the 2018 Clarendon Law Lectures given at Oxford University, clearly demonstrate the value of scholarship that 'takes the judges seriously'.

Professor Jane Stapleton is one of the world's leading experts on causation and has had a profound impact on tort law scholarship, both in terms of the incredible range of topics she has contributed to, and across the multiple countries she has worked in. Torts on Three Continents: Honouring Jane Stapleton brings together a group of scholars from Stapleton's 'home' country Australia, from the United Kingdom, where she spent much of her professional career, and the United States, where she has made such a significant contribution, to celebrate and honour her work. Torts on Three Continents reveals the impressive and enviable breadth of Jane Stapleton's scholarship while contributing to many of the ongoing and traditional debates in tort. The volume is split into four parts. The first part focuses on general themes that arise in Stapleton's work, including the academic influence on judges, the role of insurance in compensation, the impact of vulnerability on tort law and liability of public authorities. The second part considers aspects of liability in the tort of negligence, including duties of care for psychiatric harm. The third part is dedicated completely to causation, with three chapters from authors in three different countries reflecting on the impact of Stapleton's work in this area. The final section covers a variety of different aspects of tort law and compensation systems, including harms committed in the public interest, damage in economic torts, statutory product liability reforms and alternative compensation scheme design. Powerful and thought-provoking, this book will provide its readers with an appreciation of the magnitude of Jane Stapleton's contribution across the common law world, and a novel perspective on some of the more modern challenges faced in tort law.

Ewan McKendrick has been an instrumental figure in shaping the law of obligations, both as a practitioner and as a professor at the University of Oxford and University College London. On the occasion of his retirement from the Oxford Law Faculty, this volume presents a collection of essays in his honour. The contributions pay tribute to and reflect the breadth of Ewan McKendrick's scholarship and published work. Many are comparative in nature, reflecting a key element of his work. The volume is divided into four parts: contract, tort, unjust enrichment, and commercial law, with each of the 23 essays discussing a particular complex question or idea in its area. Topics include duress, good faith, frustration, the illegality defence, contractual interpretation, the basis for different forms of damages, the role of contracts in family life, corporate liability, the Marex tort, receivables financing, the regulation of international commercial contracts, the sale of goods, the development of transnational commercial law, mistakes of law, and implied terms. All 25 of the contributors have either been taught by, or worked closely with Ewan McKendrick (or, in some cases, both); and are all leading academics and/or practitioners, including two current members of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and a Justice of the High Court of Australia.

Economic torts play a key role in the development of private law more generally. Indeed, the landmark case of OBG v Allan (2008) provided one of the most important decisions in the whole of the law of torts in the last generation, as the House of Lords sought to bring order to an area of the law that has long been beset by doctrinal and theoretical puzzles. Probably the most enduring question of all in this area is whether the economic torts can be unified. This book argues that the search for unity is a will o' the wisp. More particularly, it shows that although some juridical connections exist between some of these torts, there is far more that separates them than unites them. Offering a unique perspective, this is a landmark publication on the law of economic torts.