Distributed Damage: A South African and Common Law Perspective
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Anton Fagan
Abstract
This paper seeks to answer the question whether distributed damage is something that a South African or common law tort scholar needs to care about. After explaining what distributed damage is and why it is thought to be problematic, the paper points out that the solution to the supposed problem of distributed damage is usually thought to lie in the law of civil procedure. But the paper goes on to raise the possibility that, while the problem of distributed damage is to be solved by the law of procedure, distributed damage poses a problem only because of the law of tort. As the paper explains, whether that is so depends on whether tort law is understood from an ‘instrumentalist’ or a ‘rights-based’ perspective. From the instrumentalist point of view, distributed damage does pose a problem for tort law, because it compromises its aim of deterring economically inefficient behaviour. From the rights-based point of view, by contrast, distributed damage does not pose a special problem for the law of tort. At best it provides a special opportunity for the partial solution, by procedural means, of a problem raised by all cases of trivial damage (and not only cases of trivial damage that is also distributed).
© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Atomised Losses in Tort Law: Conceptual Difficulties and Modern Developments
- Distributed Damage: A South African and Common Law Perspective
- Injunctive and Compensatory Collective Redress Mechanisms against Restraints of Competition and Unfair Trade Practices
- Dispersed Losses in Tort Law – An Economic Analysis
- Book Reviews
- Allan Beever, The Law of Private Nuisance (Hart, 2013). xiv+ 180pp. ISBN 9781849465069. £35 (hardback).
- Paula Giliker, The Europeanisation of English Tort Law (Hart, 2014). xxxvi + 226 pp. ISBN 9781849463195. £45 (hardback).
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Atomised Losses in Tort Law: Conceptual Difficulties and Modern Developments
- Distributed Damage: A South African and Common Law Perspective
- Injunctive and Compensatory Collective Redress Mechanisms against Restraints of Competition and Unfair Trade Practices
- Dispersed Losses in Tort Law – An Economic Analysis
- Book Reviews
- Allan Beever, The Law of Private Nuisance (Hart, 2013). xiv+ 180pp. ISBN 9781849465069. £35 (hardback).
- Paula Giliker, The Europeanisation of English Tort Law (Hart, 2014). xxxvi + 226 pp. ISBN 9781849463195. £45 (hardback).
