Landmark Cases in the Law of Tort contains thirteen original essays on leading tort cases, ranging from the early nineteenth century to the present day. It is the third volume in a series of collected essays on landmark cases (the previous two volumes having dealt with restitution and contract). The cases examined raise a broad range of important issues across the law of tort, including such diverse areas as acts of state and public nuisance, as well as central questions relating to the tort of negligence. Several of the essays place cases in their historical context in ways that change our understanding of the case's significance. Sometimes the focus is on drawing out previously neglected aspects of cases which have been – undeservedly – assigned minor importance. Other essays explore the judicial methodologies and techniques that worked to shape leading principles of tort law. So much of tort law turns on cases, and there are so many cases, that all but the most recent decisions have a tendency to become reduced to terse propositions of law, so as to keep the subject manageable. This collection shows how important it is, despite the constant temptation to compression, not to lose sight of the contexts and nuances which qualify and illuminate so many leading authorities.

Punitive damages are private law's most controversial remedy. This book traces the development of the jurisdiction from the foundational decisions of Huckle v Money and Wilkes v Wood in England, to leading modern cases such as Harris v Digital Pulse Pty Ltd in Australia, Whiten v Pilot Insurance Co in Canada, Couch v AG (No 2) in New Zealand, PH Hydraulics and Engineering Pte Ltd v Airtrust (Hong Kong) Ltd in Singapore and Mathias v Accor Economy Lodging, Inc and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co v Campbell in the United States. Many of the decisions addressed are not only landmarks regarding punitive damages but are among the most important judgments delivered in private law more generally. The essays, which are written by leading scholars from a wide range of jurisdictions, cast new light on the cases covered. They do so by examining their historical antecedents and the impact that they have had on the development of the law. The full spectrum of issues regarding punitive damages is addressed including the insurability of punishment, constitutional constraints on the remedy's availability and whether the award should be confined to particular causes of action. The collection will be of interest to all scholars and students of private law. It concentrates on common law cases although civilian perspectives, drawn from France and Germany, are also offered.

This book features essays by leading legal scholars on 'landmark' labour law cases from the mid-19th century to the present day. The essays are acutely sensitive to the historical and theoretical context of each case, and the volume provides original and sometimes startling new perspectives on some familiar friends. There are few activities as distinctively human as work and labour. The book traces the development of labour law through the social struggles and economic conflicts between workers, trade unions, and employers. The narrative arc of its landmark cases reveals the richness and complexity of the human story played out in the working lives of real people. It also charts the remarkable transformation of the constitutional role of courts in labour law, from instruments of class oppression to the vindication of workers' fundamental rights at work. The collection will be of interest to students, scholars, and legal practitioners in labour and equality law, as well as students in management studies, industrial relations, and labour history.

This volume explores the nature of intellectual property law by looking at particular disputes. All the cases gathered here aim to show the versatile and unstable character of a discipline still searching for landmarks. Each contribution offers an opportunity to raise questions about the narratives that have shaped the discipline throughout its short but profound history. The volume begins by revisiting patent litigation to consider the impact of the Statute of Monopolies (1624). It continues looking at different controversies to describe how the existence of an author's right in literary property was a plausible basis for legal argument, even though no statute expressly mentioned authors' rights before the Statute of Anne (1710). The collection also explores different moments of historical significance for intellectual property law: the first trade mark injunctions; the difficulties the law faced when protecting maps; and the origins of originality in copyright law. Similarly, it considers the different ways of interpreting patent claims in the late nineteenth and twentieth century; the impact of seminal cases on passing off and the law of confidentiality; and more generally, the construction of intellectual property law and its branches in their interaction with new technologies and marketing developments. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the development of intellectual property law.

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.

Landmark Cases in Property Law explores the development of basic principles of property law in leading cases. Each chapter considers a case on land, personal property or intangibles, discussing what that case contributes to the dominant themes of property jurisprudence – How are property rights acquired? What is the content of property rights? What are the limits or boundaries of property? How are property rights extinguished? Individually and collectively, the chapters identify a number of important themes for the doctrinal development of property institutions and their broader justification. These themes include: the obscure and incremental development of seemingly foundational principles, the role of instrumentalism in property reasoning, the influence of the law of tort on the scope of property doctrines, and the impact of Roman legal reasoning on the common law of property. One or more of these themes (and others) is revealed through careful case analysis in each chapter, and they are collected and critically explored in the editors' introductions. This makes for a coherent and provocative collection, and ensures that Landmark Cases in Property Law will be lively and essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and all those interested in the development of property principles at law.

This book analyses the history of the common law foundations of consumer law, and encourages readers to rethink the role that consumer law plays in our society. Consumer law is often constructed as purely statute-based law. However – as this collection will demonstrate – this is far from the truth. Much of the history of the common law concerns consumer transactions and markets. Case law has often established or modified the ground rules of consumer markets, has had a patterning effect on the economic organisation of markets, and has expressed cultural visions of the market and consumers. An analysis of landmark cases of consumer law allows many traditional cases to be viewed through a new and distinct lens, providing significant academic and intellectual value. The collection also includes a unique socio-legal perspective, considering the role that consumer law has played in addressing racial discrimination, LGBTQ challenges and the rights of women. This collection of landmark cases demonstrates the theoretical and practical significance of consumer law through a wide range of contributions by distinguished authors from the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States and Australia.

The study of the law of tort is generally preoccupied by case law, while the fundamental impact of legislation is often overlooked. At a jurisprudential level there is an unspoken view that legislation is generally piecemeal and at best self-contained and specific; at worst dependent on the whim of political views at a particular time. With a different starting point, this volume seeks to test such notions, illustrating, among other things, the widespread and lasting influence of legislation on the shape and principles of the law of tort; the variety of forms of legislation and the complex nature of political and policy concerns that may lie behind their enactment; the sometimes unexpected consequences of statutory reform; and the integration not only of statutory rules but also of legislative policy into the operation of tort law today. The apparently sharp distinction between judicially created private law principles, and democratically enacted legislative rules and policies, is therefore questioned, and it is argued that to describe the principles of the law of tort without referring to statute is potentially highly misleading. This book shows that legislation is important not only because of the way it varies or replaces case law, but because it also deeply influences the intrinsic character of that law, providing some of its most familiar characteristics. The book provides the first extended interpretation of legislative intervention in the law of tort. Each of the chapters, by leading tort scholars, deals with an aspect of the influence of legislation on the law of tort. While the nature, sources and extent of legislative influence in personal injury law is an essential feature of the collection, other significant areas of tort law are explored, including tort in the context of commercial law, labour law, regulation and the welfare state. Essays on the Compensation Act 2006 and Human Rights Act 1998 bring the current state of the interplay between tort, politics and legislation to the forefront. In all of these contexts, contributors explore the deeper lessons that can be learned about the nature of the law of tort and its changing role and functions over time. Cited with approval in the Singapore Court of Appeal by VK Rajah JA in See Toh Siew Kee vs Ho Ah Lam Ferrocement (Pte) Ltd and others, [2013] SGCA 29

This collection of essays contains in-depth analyses of eighteen landmark cases in private international law, from Penn v Lord Baltimore in 1750 to Brownlie v FS Cairo (Nile Plaza) LLC in 2021. The contributors are experts drawn from academia and practice as well as from the bench. Case law has been a central driver in the legal development of the English conflict of laws. Judge-made law does not just supply a source of law itself but also acts as the crucible in which other sources of law – legislation, international Treaty, European regulation, and ideas generated by jurists such as Joseph Story and Albert Venn Dicey – have been tested and applied. This book sheds new light on the past and future evolution of private international law by focusing on the landmark cases which have fundamentally shaped the way that we think about this subject. The focus is on the English common law, but landmarks in Scotland, Australia and Canada are covered as well. Many of them concern disputes between commercial parties; others deal with issues such as marriage and domicile; and some arise from controversies in political, constitutional and international affairs. The landmark cases tackled in this collection address significant issues in civil jurisdiction, governing law, foreign judgments, and public policy. The essays place those landmarks in their historical context, explain their contemporary importance, and consider their future relevance.

This new addition to Hart's acclaimed Landmark Cases series is a diverse and engaging edited collection bringing together eminent commentators from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, to analyse cases of enduring significance to privacy law. The book tackles the conceptual nature of privacy in its various guises, from data protection, to misuse of private information, and intrusion into seclusion. It explores the practical issues arising from questions about the threshold of actionability, the function of remedies, and the nature of damages. The cases selected are predominantly English but include cases from the United States (because of the formative influence of United States' privacy jurisprudence on the development of privacy law), Australia, Canada, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Court of Human Rights. Each chapter considers the reception and application (and, in some instances, rejection) outside of the jurisdiction where the case was decided.