scholarly journals What Has Become of Anns

1969 ◽  
pp. 673
Author(s):  
W. S. Schlosser
Keyword(s):  
Economic Loss ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
London Borough ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
District Council ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Canadian Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Prima Facie Duty ◽  
Public Bodies

The author examines the effects on Canadian law of a recent House of Lords decision overruling the case of Anns v. Merton London Borough. The author begins by tracing the development of the law of negligence from its beginnings in Donoghue v. Stevenson, through the Rivtow Marine decision in Canada, to the House of Lords decision in Anns, its treatment of the concept of economic loss, and the subsequent Canadian decisions in this area. The author then considers the building criticism of the Anns case and it ultimate downfall in the Murphy v. Brentwood District Council decision. The author highlights several results of this decision including: (1) the fallacy of ignoring the type of loss involved and beginning with a prima facie duty based on the mere foreseeability of damage; (2) the much higher degree of proximity required if damage is economic; and (3) the necessity of having regard to the statutory framework where the liability of public bodies is in issue. The author finally considers the Canadian jurisprudence in this area and concludes that, for the most part, the Canadian position will not be affected by the demise of Anns.

Governmental Liability after Francovich

1993 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 272-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Caranta
Keyword(s):  
Economic Loss ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
London Borough ◽  
Community Law ◽  
District Council ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Borough Council ◽  
Court Of Appeal

Governmental liability used to be on the retreat, especially but not only in the field of negligence liability. In Bourgoin S.A. v. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the majority of the Court of Appeal flatly stated that not every infringement of Community law was a tort. Moreover, in the recent decision in Murphy v. Brentwood District Council the House of Lords, departing from Anns v. Merton London Borough Council, dramatically curtailed any hope—or fear, it depends on the point of view—of development of governmental liability in the field of economic loss.

Resiling from the Anns principle: the variable nature of proximity in negligence

Legal Studies ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kidner
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
London Borough ◽  
Variable Nature ◽  
The Law ◽  
Prima Facie Duty ◽  
Different Levels

For a number of years there has been considerable criticism of both Donoghue v Stevenson and Anns v London Borough of Merton on the grounds that the prima facie duty doctrine which some believe those cases established is so wide as to be meaningless and obscures more than it reveals. This article seeks to show how the courts have come to accept this criticism and to indicate how the concept of duty should now be viewed. In particular the point is that there are now different levels of proximity required to establish a duty in different situations and that while this means that the various categories of duty must be distinguished from each other, this does not involve ossification of the law, but rather development of the law may be made easier by a pragmatic rather than a conceptual approach. The principle that 'the categories of negligence are never closed’ means both that existing duties may be refined and extended, and also that new duties may be created. How that can be done depends on our understanding of the nature of the concept of duty and how each step should be taken.

Negligence and defective buildings: demolishing the foundations of Anns?

Legal Studies ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Giles ◽  
Erika Szyszczak
Keyword(s):  
Product Liability ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
Pure Economic Loss ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Law ◽  
Tort Claims

It was generally accepted that the House of Lords in Anns v Merton LBC introduced an ‘entirely new type of product liability’ into the law of tort by expanding liability in negligence in relation to the construction of defective buildings. The novelty of the action was to introduce liability in tort for the construction of the defective product itself and to allow a claim for economic loss resulting from the defect. The consequence was to blur some of the traditional boundaries between contract and tort claims and to cause controversy in relation to the nature of the allowable loss recoverable from the negligent act. In particular it led to the question of whether such claims fell into the category of ‘pure economic loss’: a loss not easily accepted in conventional tort jurisprudence.

4. Pure economic loss and negligent misstatement

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-49
Author(s):  
Carol Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Loss ◽  
Professional Services ◽  
Physical Injury ◽  
Property Damage ◽  
Injury Death ◽  
Pure Economic Loss ◽  
District Council ◽  
The Law

This chapter discusses the law on pure economic loss, which is loss that is not derived from physical injury, death, or property damage. It may be consequential, that is resulting from the acquisition of a defective product or property. More commonly, the issue arises due to a negligent misstatement, or provision of professional services. This is an area of commercial and professional importance where there has been a trend towards expansion in the area of negligent misstatement. The two key cases in this area are Murphy v Brentwood District Council and Hedley Byrne v Heller.

scholarly journals Border-Crossing: Immigration Law, Racism and Justified Resistance

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110301
Author(s):  
Guy Aitchison
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Law ◽  
Prima Facie Duty ◽  
Political Character

Aside from the case of refugees under international law, are non-citizen outsiders morally justified in unlawfully entering another state? Recent answers to this question, based on a purported right of necessity or civil disobedience, exclude many cases of justified border-crossing and fail to account for its distinctive political character. I argue that in certain non-humanitarian cases, unlawful border-crossing involves the exercise of a remedial moral right to resist the illegitimate exercise of coercive power. The case accepts, for the sake of argument, two conventional assumptions among defenders of immigration restrictions: that states have a ‘right to exclude’ and that migrants have a prima facie duty to respect borders. Nonetheless, where immigration law is racist or otherwise discriminatory, it violates the egalitarian standards at the core of any authority it can plausibly claim over outsiders. In such cases, it may be resisted even where the law is facially non-discriminatory.

4. Pure economic loss and negligent misstatement

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Loss ◽  
Professional Services ◽  
Physical Injury ◽  
Property Damage ◽  
Injury Death ◽  
Pure Economic Loss ◽  
District Council ◽  
The Law

This chapter discusses the law on pure economic loss, which is loss that is not derived from physical injury, death, or property damage. It may be consequential, that is resulting from the acquisition of a defective product or property. More commonly, the issue arises due to a negligent misstatement, or provision of professional services. This is an area of commercial and professional importance where there has been a trend towards expansion in the area of negligent misstatement. The two key cases in this area are Murphy v Brentwood District Council and Hedley Byrne v Heller.

Negligently inflicted psychiatric harm: a re-appraisal

Legal Studies ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Economic Loss ◽  
Personal Injury ◽  
Duty Of Care ◽  
Pure Economic Loss ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
The Law ◽  
Relationship Of

The law of negligence has long been concerned not to countenance liability ‘in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class’. Nowhere, except perhaps in relation to pure economic loss, has this reluctance been more pronounced than in the context of negligently inflicted psychiatric harm. Without aiming to advocate a system of law that would create an increase in the workload of personal injury practitioners, this article attempts a thoroughgoing reappraisal of the bases of liability for psychiatric harm. More particularly, its primary aim is to accommodate liability for such harm within the current, tripartite framework governing the duty of care: that harm to the plaintiff be foreseeable, that there be a relationship of proximity between the plaintiff and the defendant and, that it be just and reasonable to impose a duty. Such an endeavour is both timely and necessary in view of the House of Lords’ recent insistence that in all cases-even those involving physical harm-all three limbs of the duty formula must explicitly be demonstrated.

Negligence After Murphy: Time to Re-Think

1991 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Howarth
Keyword(s):  
District Council ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Borough Council ◽  
The Law

After a decade of adventure, Anns v. Merton Borough Council has been killed off. The case that seemed to many to be the most important statement of the law of negligence in England since Donoghue v. Stevenson has been finally done to death by a specially augmented House of Lords in Murphy v. Brentwood District Council?For the House of Lords openly to overrule one of its own previous decisions is itself an event rare enough to deserve comment. But when the Law Lords, by 7–0, declare unsound a case that has been cited in 189 English cases in only 13 years (and until recently mostly with approval), we know that something extraordinary has happened.

4. Pure economic loss and negligent misstatement

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-47
Author(s):  
Carol Brennan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Loss ◽  
Professional Services ◽  
Physical Injury ◽  
Property Damage ◽  
Injury Death ◽  
Pure Economic Loss ◽  
District Council ◽  
The Law

This chapter discusses the law on pure economic loss, which is loss that is not derived from physical injury, death, or property damage. It may be consequential, that is resulting from the acquisition of a defective product or property. More commonly, the issue arises due to a negligent misstatement, or provision of professional services. This is an area of commercial and professional importance where there has been a trend towards expansion in the area of negligent misstatement. The two key cases in this area are Murphy v Brentwood District Council and Hedley Byrne v Heller.

The Normative Force of Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Murphy
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Legal Rule ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Normative Force ◽  
Moral Force ◽  
Instrumental Case ◽  
The Law ◽  
Prima Facie Duty ◽  
Institutional Order

After distinguishing some other senses of the “normativity” of law, this chapter addresses its moral force. It is argued that all deontological accounts of a prima facie duty to obey the law, other than the argument from consent, fail for being unable to show that the moral value of law as an institutional order implies a duty to obey each and every legal rule. The argument from consent fails for familiar reasons. This leaves an instrumental account of the moral force of law as the only option. The upshot is that, for individuals, the moral force of law is variable, and often weak. The case is different for state officials, as subjects of either domestic or international law. Here the instrumental case for obedience is typically strong.

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