27. Principles of Compensation for Personal Injuries and Associated Losses

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Witting
Keyword(s):  
Tort Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Personal Injury ◽  
Fatal Accidents ◽  
The Law ◽  
Alternative Sources

This chapter examines the principles of awards and damages for personal injuries and associated losses in tort law. It explains that damages are available to both surviving tort victims and to deceased estates. The personal injury damages available to living claimants include those for pecuniary losses and non-pecuniary losses, while for instances where the tort victim has died there are survival actions provided by the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1934 and another that treats the victim’s very death as the basis of the claim which is provided for by the Fatal Accidents Act 1976. This chapter also considers various alternative sources of compensation.

In Our Image: Colonial Discourse and the Anglicization of the Law of Mandatory Palestine

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assaf Likhovski
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Personal Injury ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
The Law ◽  
Shoulder Blade

My story is full of holes. The first hole, or rather, ditch, was dug in 1930 by the municipality of Haifa. An Arab, Dr. Caesar Khoury, fell into the ditch and fractured his shoulder-blade.Could Dr. Khoury recover? The law of torts of mandatory Palestine was found in the Mejelle — an Ottoman code of Moslem civil law. Did the Mejelle provide a remedy in the case of personal injury? “Unfortunately,” said Judge Francis Baker, who delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court of Palestine, “the Mejelle dealt with liability for damages caused by animals to property, but it was ‘silent’ with regards to injuries caused to persons”. Therefore, Dr. Khoury could not recover.The second hole in my story belongs to a Jew, Feivel Danovitz. In 1939, Danovitz was run down by a truck in Tel Aviv. He sued the driver and the owner of the truck. The lower courts of Tel Aviv decided that if the Mejelle did not deal with liability for personal injury, that meant that there was a hole in the tort law of Palestine. Such a hole could be filled by recourse to the English common law in accordance with the provisions of Article 46 of the Palestine Order-in-Council, 1922. Since the English common law recognized liability for personal injury, Danovitz could recover.

Personal Injury Law and Emotional Distress

1981 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-109
Author(s):  
John G. Langhenry
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Distress ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Personal Injury ◽  
The Law ◽  
Judicial Recognition

The tort law applicable to emotional distress is being examined by the courts and traditional concepts of recovery are being expanded. This article surveys the development of the law in this area and defines the general parameters of judicial recognition. It also identifies the trends which may shape future law.

THE 2017 AMENDMENTS TO THE LAW REFORM (MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE) ACT 1976: A MILESTONE OR A STONE’S THROW IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MALAYSIAN FAMILY LAW?

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 449-479
Author(s):  
Sridevi Thambapillay
Keyword(s):  
Child Custody ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Past ◽  
Marriage And Divorce ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
Family Issues ◽  
The Law ◽  
Muslim Family

The Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 (LRA) which was passed in 1976 and came into force on 1st March 1982, standardized the laws concerning non-Muslim family matters. Many family issues concerning non-Muslim have emerged ever since, the most important being the effects of unilateral conversion to Islam by one of the parties to the marriage. There has been a lot of public hue and cry for amendments to be made to the LRA. After much deliberation, the Malaysian Parliament finally passed the amendments to the LRA in October 2017, which came into force in December 2018. Although the amendments have addressed selected family law issues, the most important amendment on child custody in a unilateral conversion to Islam was dropped from the Bill at the last minute. Howsoever, at the end of the day, the real question that needs to be addressed is whether the amendments have resolved the major issues that have arisen over the past four decades? Hence, the purpose of this article is as follows: first, to examine the brief background to the passing of the LRA, secondly, to analyse the 2017 amendments, thirdly, to identify the weaknesses that still exist in the LRA, and finally, to suggest recommendations to overcome these weaknesses by comparing the Malaysian position with the Singaporean position. In conclusion, it is submitted that despite the recent amendments to the LRA, much needs to be done to overcome all the remaining issues that have still not been addressed.

Protecting the Desperate: The Regulation of Payday Lending

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-176
Author(s):  
Andrew J Serpell
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Credit ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Payday Lending ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Payday Loans ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Credit Contracts ◽  
The Cost

Payday loans are small-amount, short-term, unsecured, high-cost credit contracts provided by non-mainstream credit providers. Payday loans are usually taken out to help the consumer pay for essential items, such as food, rent, electricity, petrol, broken-down appliances or car registration or repairs. These consumers take out payday loans because they cannot — or believe that they cannot — obtain a loan from a mainstream credit provider such as a bank. In recent years there has been a protracted debate in Australia — and in several overseas jurisdictions — about how to regulate the industry. Recent amendments to the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (Cth) — referred to in this article as the 2013 reforms — are designed to better protect payday loan consumers. While the 2013 reforms provide substantially improved protection for payday loan consumers, further changes to the law may be warranted. This article raises several law reform issues which should be considered as part of the 2015 review into small amount credit contracts, including whether the caps on the cost of credit are set at the right level, whether the required content and presentation of the consumer warnings needs to be altered, whether more needs to be done to protect consumers who are particularly disadvantaged or vulnerable and whether a general anti-avoidance provision should be included in the credit legislation.

scholarly journals CODIFICATION, CONSOLIDATION, RESTATEMENT? HOW BEST TO SYSTEMISE THE MODERN LAW OF TORT

2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-305
Author(s):  
Paula Giliker
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Tort Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Scholarship ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Law ◽  
Codal Provisions ◽  
Code Civil

AbstractThe law of tort (or extra or non-contractual liability) has been criticised for being imprecise and lacking coherence. Legal systems have sought to systemise its rules in a number of ways. While civil law systems generally place tort law in a civil code, common law systems have favoured case-law development supported by limited statutory intervention consolidating existing legal rules. In both systems, case law plays a significant role in maintaining the flexibility and adaptability of the law. This article will examine, comparatively, different means of systemising the law of tort, contrasting civil law codification (taking the example of recent French proposals to update the tort provisions of the Code civil) with common law statutory consolidation and case-law intervention (using examples taken from English and Australian law). In examining the degree to which these formal means of systemisation are capable of improving the accessibility, intelligibility, clarity and predictability of the law of tort, it will also address the role played by informal sources, be they ambitious restatements of law or other means. It will be argued that given the nature of tort law, at best, any form of systemisation (be it formal or informal) can only seek to minimise any lack of precision and coherence. However, as this comparative study shows, further steps are needed, both in updating outdated codal provisions and rethinking the type of legal scholarship that might best assist the courts.

Determining a Suicide under Australian Law

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Jowett ◽  
Belinda Carpenter ◽  
Gordon Tait
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Practical Matter ◽  
The Law ◽  
Recent Government

This article examines the role of coroners in making legal determinations of suicide in Australia. Research indicates that the requirement to make findings of intent and capacity in unexpected, violent deaths can be difficult for coroners and recent government inquiries have suggested that the law contributes to the problem. A review of laws and commentary that guide coroners in Australian states and territories reveals not only that coroners are the only persons tasked with making routine legal determinations of suicide, but that such legal guidance lacks clarity. This article concludes that law reform would aid coroners by clarifying definitional issues, removing inconsistency between state jurisdictions and increasing the transparency of case law. Along with requirements for a determination of intent, which is a practical matter previously raised by the Victorian Coronial Council, such changes would go some way to ensuring that Australian suicide statistics are more reliably created.

scholarly journals Diminished responsibility and alcohol

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuwan Galappathie ◽  
Krishma Jethwa
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
The Law ◽  
Diminished Responsibility

SummaryIn England and Wales diminished responsibility is a partial defence to the charge of murder. If successfully argued by the defence, it reduces the charge from murder to manslaughter and thus avoids the mandatory life sentence. Alcohol has been reported to be a feature in up to 80% of all homicides but for many years the judiciary have set an almost unattainable threshold for the disease of alcoholism to amount to a finding of diminished responsibility, in accordance with other aspects of criminal law. Reform of the law on murder is likely to take many years but it is timely to recap the current law on diminished responsibility and review advances in case law in England and Wales on alcohol.

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