Personal Injury Law and Emotional Distress

1981 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-109
Author(s):  
John G. Langhenry

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.

1995 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Assaf Likhovski

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.


Author(s):  
Christian Witting

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-305
Author(s):  
Paula Giliker

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.


Author(s):  
Robert D. Cooter ◽  
Ariel Porat

This book examines how the law of torts, contracts, and restitution can be improved by showing how private law reduces the cost of accidents, lubricates bargains, and encourages unrequested benefits. It considers the two pervasive rules of tort law that provide incentives for actors to reduce accident costs: strict liability and negligence. It also explains how contract law achieves effiency through the remedy of damages and how restitution law allows benefactors to recover gains that their beneficiaries wrongfully obtained from them. The book makes three central claims: misalignments in tort law should be removed; in contract law, promisee's incentives should be improved; and the law should recognize some right of compensation for those who produce unrequested benefits. Each claim is based on the desire to reform private law and to make it more effective in promoting social welfare.


Japanese Law ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 191-211
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Oda

Tort is part of the Law of Obligations. Provisions on tort liability are found in Book Three, the Law of Obligations, of the Civil Code. There is only a single general provision on tort. The legislature expected rules to develop out of case law. A person who intentionally or negligently infringes upon others’ right or interests protected There is a body of case law which sets out details of tort law such as causation and fault. There have been cases where the shift of the burden of proof was at issue. 


2021 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Christian Witting

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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Omri Ben-Shahar ◽  
Ariel Porat

This chapter illustrates personalized law “in action” by examining it in three areas of the law: standards of care under the common law tort doctrine of negligence, mandated consumer protections in contract law, and criminal sanctions. In each area, the chapter examines personalization of commands along several dimensions. In tort law, standards of care could vary according to each injurer’s riskiness and skill, to reduce the costs of accidents. In contract law, mandatory protections could vary according to the value they provide each consumer and differential cost they impose on firms, to allocate protections where, and only where, they are justified. And in criminal law, sanctions would be set based on what it takes to deter criminals, accounting for how perpetrators differ in their motives and likelihood of being apprehended, with the potential to reduce unnecessary harsh penalties.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document