Scholars of Tort Law


Book Description

The publication of Scholars of Tort Law marks the beginning of a long overdue rebalancing of private law scholarship. Instead of concentrating on judicial decisions and academic commentary only for what that commentary says about judicial decisions, the book explores the contributions of scholars of tort law in their own right. The work of a selection of leading scholars of tort law from across the common law world, ranging from Thomas Cooley (1824–1898) to Patrick Atiyah (1931–2018), is addressed by eminent current scholars in the field. The focus of the contributions is on the nature of the work produced by each of the scholars in question, important influences on their work, and the influence which that work in turn had on thinking about tort law. The process of subjecting tort law scholarship to sustained analysis provides new insights into the intellectual development of tort law and reveals the important role played by scholars in that development. By focusing on the work of influential tort scholars, the book serves to emphasise the importance of legal scholarship to the development of the common law more generally.




Tort Law Defences


Book Description

The law of torts recognises many defences to liability. While some of these defences have been explored in detail, scant attention has been given to the theoretical foundations of defences generally. In particular, no serious attempt has been made to explain how defences relate to each other or to the torts to which they pertain. The goal of this book is to reduce the size of this substantial gap in our understanding of tort law. The principal way in which it attempts to do so is by developing a taxonomy of defences. The book shows that much can be learned about a given defence from the way in which it is classified. This book has been awarded Joint Second Prize for the 2014 Society of Legal Scholars Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship.




Tort Law in America


Book Description

G. Edward White's 'Tort Law in America' is regarded as a standard in the field. Concise, accessible and wide-ranging, White's work represents a major work of legal scholarship, providing an enduring intellectual history of American tort law.




Recognizing Wrongs


Book Description

Two preeminent legal scholars explain what tort law is all about and why it matters, and describe their own view of tort’s philosophical basis: civil recourse theory. Tort law is badly misunderstood. In the popular imagination, it is “Robin Hood” law. Law professors, meanwhile, mostly dismiss it as an archaic, inefficient way to compensate victims and incentivize safety precautions. In Recognizing Wrongs, John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky explain the distinctive and important role that tort law plays in our legal system: it defines injurious wrongs and provides victims with the power to respond to those wrongs civilly. Tort law rests on a basic and powerful ideal: a person who has been mistreated by another in a manner that the law forbids is entitled to an avenue of civil recourse against the wrongdoer. Through tort law, government fulfills its political obligation to provide this law of wrongs and redress. In Recognizing Wrongs, Goldberg and Zipursky systematically explain how their “civil recourse” conception makes sense of tort doctrine and captures the ways in which the law of torts contributes to the maintenance of a just polity. Recognizing Wrongs aims to unseat both the leading philosophical theory of tort law—corrective justice theory—and the approaches favored by the law-and-economics movement. It also sheds new light on central figures of American jurisprudence, including former Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and Benjamin Cardozo. In the process, it addresses hotly contested contemporary issues in the law of damages, defamation, malpractice, mass torts, and products liability.




The Measure of Injury


Book Description

""This book asks important questions about the tort system. Tort law is largely taught and described from a doctrinal perspective that makes no attempt to see how it is actualy working on the ground. This book assesses how the tort system fares in operation by examining how race and gender influence court decisions in torts cases. A promising direction for scholarship on the tort system.""--BOOK JACKET.




A Revisionist History of Tort Law


Book Description

A Revisionist History of Tort Law explodes the myths of modern tort historiography. It challenges both the methodology and the conclusions of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., America's first and most influential tort historian. It contends that Holmes' jurisprudence corrupted his view of history, and that his historiography corrupted the outlook of his successors. Yet Revisionist History offers much more than simple deconstruction. It identifies the principles for historical analysis and uses those principles to propose a revolutionary new history of tort law. As a social science, history requires deep, comprehensive and unbiased investigation. Thus, Revisionist History does not trace the development of any specific tort doctrine. Rather, it uncovers the political, philosophical, social, and moral influences which gave the law its life. Moreover, this book does not simply reinterpret the law's primary sources. Instead, it marshals a vast array of secondary authorities which place those sources in context. Finally, Revisionist History does not set its focus on a single, isolated epoch. Rather, it traces the law's entire intellectual history -- from its earliest beginnings to its emergence in the modern era. Enriched by its broadened scope, A Revisionist History of Tort Law provides revelations about the law's past and opens insights into its present and future. It disproves the notion that early tort law was primitive and thoughtless, locating its origins in the intellectual revival of the twelfth century renaissance. It debunks the view that tort law fluctuated with changing notions of public policy, arguing, conversely, that the law's structure and content remained consistently grounded in classical principles of liberalism, naturalism, and rationalism. Finally, it refutes the theory that tort law switched from strict liability to liability based on fault, revealing instead a system remarkably steadfast in its commitment to the timeless dictates of reasonableness. "This book is highly recommended for all tort scholars, legal philosophers, and legal historians." -- Michael Rustad in The Law and Politics Book Review vol. 15, no. 5, May 2005 "...Intriguing, original..." -- Alberta Law Review




Comparative Tort Law


Book Description

This revised second edition of Comparative Tort Law: Global Perspectives offers an updated and enriched framework for analysing and understanding the current state of tort law around the world. Using a critical comparative methodology, it covers not only the common tort law issues but also many jurisdictions often overlooked in the mainstream literature. Contributions explore illuminating case studies from tort systems in Europe, the US, Latin America, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, including new chapters specifically discussing tort law in Brazil, India and Russia.




Exploring Tort Law


Book Description

This is a collection of scholarship from the most influential contributors regarding Torts law.




Perspectives on Tort Law


Book Description

Universally considered to be pathbreaking, landmark, original, and provocative since its first edition was published three decades ago, "Women in Law" continues to provide a sociological and historical analysis of the overt and subtle ceilings placed on women in the legal profession in their various roles. It is a foundational work for departments of gender studies, law, and sociology - but also reads as accessible and interesting to a general audience. Adding a new foreword by Stanford's Deborah Rhode, the thirtieth anniversary edition of this classic book reports countless revealing interviews, war stories, and inside glimpses of the many professional roles that women inhabit: lawyers, judges, professors, leaders, and backroom labor. It also brings vividly to life the candid - and sometimes cringeworthy - assessments by male lawyers and judges about the changes to the profession ushered in by the increasing entry of women to the lawyers' club. Part of the "Classics of Law & Society" Series from Quid Pro, "Women in Law" is recognized as within the canon of its field, and now is available in a modern paperback format. It features embedded page numbers from the previous print editions (to facilitate referencing, classroom assignment, and continuity with the new ebook editions), as well as all the original tables and figures. "From the new Foreword: " "When Cynthia Fuchs Epstein published her pathbreaking account of "Women in Law," their status in the profession was separate and anything but equal.... Over the last three decades, much has changed but too much has remained the same. Now, about half of new lawyers in the United States are women and they are fairly evenly distributed across substantive areas. Yet significant gender disparities persist. Women constitute about a third of the lawyers in large firms, but only about 17 percent of equity partners. Attrition rates are almost twice as high among female associates as among comparable male associates.... When Epstein published "Women in Law," part of what attracted its widespread acclaim was its originality; it was among the first in what has now become a rich literature on gender and diversity in the profession. Indeed, the fact that the book is being reissued testifies not only to its enduring scholarly value, but also to the attention that the issue now commands.... Her book helped inspire that movement, and our profession remains deeply in her debt." - Deborah L. RhodeErnest W. McFarland Professor of Law, Stanford Law School "Impressive ... a story which the legal world can read with no legal pride and which others will read with substantial interest." - "New York Times Book Review" (reviewing the first edition)




Philosophical Foundations of Tort Law


Book Description

This exceptional collection of twenty-two essays on the philosophical fundamentals of tort law assembles many of the world's leading commentators on this particularly fascinating conjunction of law and philosophy. The contributions range broadly, from inquiries into how tort law derives fromAristotle, Aquinas, and Kant to the latest economic and rights-based theories of legal reponsibility. This is truly a multi-national production, with contributions from several distinguished Oxford scholars of law and philosophy and many prominent scholars from the United States, Canada, and Israel.A provocative closing essay by one of the world's leading moral philosophers illuminates how tort law enables philosophers to observe the abstract theories of their discipline put to the concrete test in the legal resolution of real-world controversies based on principles of right and wrong.




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