Volume 4, Issue 3

Are judges la bouche de la loi or are they the oracles of the law? An answer to this question is sought by comparing the different styles of reasoning of French, German, Austrian and UK courts of last resort in tort cases. Whereas UK judges state overtly what they think, French judges keep secret their motives. German and Austrian judges tend to maintain that legal doctrine provides an answer to even the most difficult questions. But, as regards the outcome, there are no real differences. Judges are nowhere merely the mouth of the law.

Although foundational to the tort law of both common law and civil law countries, the concept of damage has been the object of surprisingly little analysis by academics in the common law world. The aim of this article is to redress the balance somewhat by looking more closely at the meaning of damage in the English law of negligence. The first part of the article consists of general observations on the damage concept. It is argued that it is impossible to devise a meaningful general definition of damage, that damage is not the same thing as loss, and that the damage concept is compatible with rights-based analysis of negligence law. The remainder of the article is devoted to consideration of the two most common forms of damage, personal injury and physical damage to property. It is argued that a central idea underpinning both these routine forms of damage is that of ‘impairment’ and that both forms of damage are subject to de minimis principles. As regards personal injury, particular attention is paid to the forms of psychiatric injury which ground a negligence claim. Finally, it is argued that for property to be damaged there must be a physical change in the property which impairs its utility or value, and that merely to incapacitate property is not to damage it. Although the primary focus is on English law (and the common law more generally), some comparative observations are made.

This paper is a critique of false privacy, the proposition that privacy’s protective remit should extend to information that is entirely false. It argues that there are conceptual as well as doctrinal problems associated with such an action in tort law. First, drawing on the work of the American sociologist, Erving Goffman, the paper challenges the idea that the authentic self can be recognised in law. Second, the paper argues that false privacy sits uneasily with tort law’s doctrinal framework. While the paper focuses on English tort law, it pursues its lines of argument in a comparative context, exploring how German and US law give expression to false privacy.