1. Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Kirsty Horsey ◽  
Erika Rackley
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Good Knowledge ◽  
Loss Distribution ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual

This introductory chapter begins by providing examples of torts. It then discusses the aims of the law of torts, the most significant being compensation and deterrence. Part of the justification for a tort is that it identifies what actions should be avoided and deters people from engaging in them. It is essential to know that action is wrongful, but a tort action may over-deter or under-deter. It may over-deter where the perception of the chance of liability is exaggerated. It may under-deter where either the chances of somebody suing to enforce their rights are small, or where the consequences to the individual tortfeasor may be slight. Originally tort was about ‘shifting’ or ‘transferring’ the loss from the victim to the defendant (corrective justice). The defendant themselves paid compensation to the victim. However, those days are gone and we are now in an era of ‘loss distribution’. In other words, it is not the defendant himself who pays, but it will be their, or their employer’s, insurer. The chapter then considers the study of torts. Tort law is almost wholly a case-driven subject and therefore a good knowledge of the cases and what they stand for is essential. The chapter presents three steps to studying cases.

1. Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsty Horsey ◽  
Erika Rackley
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Good Knowledge ◽  
Loss Distribution ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual

This introductory chapter begins by providing examples of torts. It then discusses the aims of the law of torts, the most significant being compensation and deterrence. Part of the justification for a tort is that it identifies what actions should be avoided and deters people from engaging in them. It is essential to know that action is wrongful, but a tort action may over-deter or under-deter. It may over-deter where the perception of the chance of liability is exaggerated. It may under-deter where either the chances of somebody suing to enforce their rights are small, or where the consequences to the individual tortfeasor may be slight. Originally tort was about ‘shifting’ or ‘transferring’ the loss from the victim to the defendant (corrective justice). The defendant themselves paid compensation to the victim. However, those days are gone and we are now in an era of ‘loss distribution’. In other words, it is not the defendant himself who pays, but it will be their, or their employer’s, insurer. The chapter then considers the study of torts. Tort law is almost wholly a case-driven subject and therefore a good knowledge of the cases and what they stand for is essential. The chapter presents three steps to studying cases.

1. Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Kirsty Horsey ◽  
Erika Rackley
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Good Knowledge ◽  
Loss Distribution ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Individual

This introductory chapter begins by providing examples of torts. It then discusses the aims of the law of torts, the most significant being compensation and deterrence. Part of the justification for a tort is that it identifies what actions should be avoided and deters people from engaging in them. It is essential to know that action is wrongful, but a tort action may over-deter or under-deter. It may over-deter where the perception of the chance of liability is exaggerated. It may under-deter where either the chances of somebody suing to enforce their rights are small, or where the consequences to the individual tortfeasor may be slight. Originally tort was about ‘shifting’ or ‘transferring’ the loss from the victim to the defendant (corrective justice). The defendant themselves paid compensation to the victim. However, those days are gone and we are now in an era of ‘loss distribution’. In other words, it is not the defendant himself who pays, but it will be their, or their employer’s, insurer. The chapter then considers the study of torts. Tort law is almost wholly a case-driven subject and therefore a good knowledge of the cases and what they stand for is essential. The chapter presents three steps to studying cases.

1. Overview of tort law

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Christian Witting
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
Rights And Interests

This chapter provides an overview of tort law. It explains that tort law is a branch of the law of obligations which imposes liability for the breach of norms of conduct based on the type of interest at stake and/or the degree of fault present in the defendant. It provides a brief history of tort law. It then moves on to discuss the rights and interests protected by tort law. The chapter considers also theoretical perspectives on tort law. These concern such things as the bases of tortious liability and the issue of whether tort law should serve individual (eg, corrective justice) or social (eg, deterrence) goals.

1. Introduction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
Angus Johnston ◽  
Basil Markesinis
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Current State ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Tort Claims

This introductory chapter first reviews the current state of the law of tort. It discusses the increase in tort claims due to our greater ability to cause more and greater harm and our reduced willingness to put up with the normal vicissitudes of life. It considers the law of individual responsibility. It suggests that tort law is becoming by the day a more complex set of rules than it ever was, where national law mixes with legal ideas emanating from foreign jurisdictions. Tort law rules are also becoming intermingled with those from other branches of English law. The second part of the chapter discusses the relationship between tort and contract.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer K. Robbennolt ◽  
Valerie P. Hans
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Law ◽  
Influence Behavior

This chapter reviews the objectives of tort law, including deterrence, allocation of the costs of injuries, corrective justice, and civil recourse. It describes how these aims implicate the psychology of decision making in tort. In seeking to accomplish its objectives, the law of torts is inevitably concerned with how legal rules influence behavior, how the psychology of decision makers interacts with the legal rules, and how jurors and judges evaluate and respond to the behavior of both plaintiffs and defendants.

What is Tort Law For? The Place of Distributive Justice

2019 ◽  
pp. 79-102
Author(s):  
John Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Explanatory Priority ◽  
The Law ◽  
A Site

This chapter defends the claim that certain questions of distributive justice are central to the law of torts, and cannot but be faced by those who administer and develop it, precisely because the law of torts is a site of corrective justice. Those with pigeonholing instincts may be tempted to label this a ‘mixed’ or ‘pluralistic’ explanation of tort law. The chapter endorses Peter Cane’s thesis that corrective justice provides the structure of tort law within which distributive justice operates. It presents a version of this thesis which shows that the place of corrective justice in tort law enjoys some kind of explanatory priority.

1. Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-53
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
Zoe Adams
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Current State ◽  
English Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Tort Claims

This introductory chapter first reviews the current state of the law of tort. It discusses the increase in tort claims due to our greater ability to cause more and greater harm and our reduced willingness to put up with the normal vicissitudes of life. It considers the law of individual responsibility. It suggests that tort law is becoming by the day a more complex set of rules than it ever was, where national law mixes with legal ideas emanating from foreign jurisdictions. Tort law rules are also becoming intermingled with those from other branches of English law. The second part of the chapter discusses the relationship between tort and contract.

Justice, corrective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest J. Weinrib
Keyword(s):  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Corrective Justice ◽  
Theoretical Idea ◽  
Institutional Practice ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Relationship

In his treatment of justice Aristotle articulated a contrast between two forms of justice, corrective and distributive. The former deals with the rectification of an injustice inflicted by one person on another, the latter with the distribution of benefits or burdens. These forms of justice have differing structures. What informs distributive justice is the notion of comparison: a greater share goes to the more meritorious under the distributive criterion. What informs corrective justice is the notion of correlativity or mutuality: an injurer has inflicted wrongful harm on a victim if and only if the victim has suffered wrongful harm through the injurer’s conduct. The parties, as doer and sufferer of the same injustice, are the active and passive poles of a single wrong, which the law rectifies by holding the perpetrator liable to the victim. In recent decades corrective justice (along with its differentiation from distributive justice) has attracted the attention of legal theorists interested in tort law as a repository of normative judgements and insights about wrongful injuries. These theorists view the notion of correlativity as crucial for understanding the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant. An emphasis on correlativity illuminates both the arguments that properly belong within a system of liability and the connection between corrective justice as a theoretical idea and legal liability as a familiar institutional practice. This entry outlines the role of corrective justice in contemporary tort theory.

1. Introduction

Tort Law ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kirsty Horsey ◽  
Erika Rackley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Law ◽  
Definition Of

This introductory chapter begins with a definition of tort law and the interests that tort law protects. To say that the law of tort protects an individual’s rights or interests does not mean that a claimant will succeed simply by showing that the defendant harmed them or infringed their rights. Tort law lays down a set of rules stating when exactly a harm or infringement of one’s interest will give rise to legal liability. The chapter discusses the disparate functions of tort law and illustrates them through the case of Woodroffe-Hedley v Cuthbertson [1997]. The chapter then explains the significance of the Human Rights Act 1998 for tort law.

1. Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Kirsty Horsey ◽  
Erika Rackley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Human Rights Act 1998 ◽  
The Law ◽  
Definition Of

This introductory chapter begins with a definition of tort law and the interests that tort law protects. To say that the law of tort protects an individual’s rights or interests does not mean that a claimant will succeed simply by showing that the defendant harmed them or infringed their rights. Tort law lays down a set of rules stating when exactly a harm or infringement of one’s interest will give rise to legal liability. The chapter discusses the disparate functions of tort law and illustrates them through the case of Woodroffe-Hedley v Cuthbertson [1997]. The chapter then explains the significance of the Human Rights Act 1998 for tort law.

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