Every civil wrong has a number of requirements that must be satisfied before the plaintiff may obtain compensation for resulting harm. One requirement common to all wrongs is that the harm must be attributable to the defendant’s wrongful conduct. It may broadly be said that the defendant’s wrongful conduct must constitute a cause of the harm. This always involves an inquiry into whether there is a historical link in fact between the wrong and the harm, and usually also a value judgement on whether liability for the harm ought to be imposed upon the defendant.

With regard to wrongs actionable only on proof of damage (for example, negligence), the attribution of responsibility for harm is part of establishing liability rather than a matter of remedy. With regard to wrongs actionable per se, the attribution of responsibility for harm is a matter of remedy since nominal damages can be awarded in the absence of loss. In any event, it is customary to discuss attribution of responsibility in books on remedies, and this book follows that custom.

A contract may be breached by one party (the defendant) through defective performance, delayed performance, or a total failure to perform. If the contract breached is enforceable at common law, the innocent party (the plaintiff) can generally claim common law damages for any loss suffered as a result of the breach. The assessment of such damages and the attribution of responsibility for such loss are generally governed by the rules discussed in Chs 2 to 4 for civil wrongs in general. Specific rules for breach of contract are discussed in this chapter: the assessment of damages and the attribution of responsibility.

The advent of automated driving systems forces us to reconsider legal concepts such as negligence, recklessness, and volition and will lead to new narratives in criminal courts on how to understand these established concepts. New mala prohibita may also need to be developed, impacting human and nonhuman drivers. One question in this reconfiguration will be whose powers of perception and/or agency will be deemed relevant. Automated driving systems have their own hermeneutics in the sense of their algorithms; can, and if so how, will humans understand their actions? Interdisciplinary collaborations are required to deal with new technologies, but jurists are often unacquainted with technology, and the experts who guide them are not usually jurists. Translation problems between disciplines may occur, as well as responsibility gaps, with negative consequences for both new legislation and individual cases. This chapter argues that automated driving systems require a hermeneutics of the situation, a framework to guide factual and legal interpretation for these systems that is interdisciplinary in nature and bridges legal, ethical, and technical challenges.

This chapter provides an overview of the legal and medical principles that underpin medical negligence litigation, including the definition of medical negligence, what constitutes a psychiatric injury, the psychiatric evaluation and practical issues which commonly arise, when undertaking a psychiatric assessment in the context of clinical negligence litigation. After criminal negligence, the elements of civil negligence are set out including duty of care and standard of care. Legal concepts of causation and psychiatric injury differ from medical or scientific causation. The professional obligations on the forensic psychiatry as expert are to be neutral and objective, to obtain and document consent, to structure how instructions are taken and how reports are written in the light of court guidelines. As with all areas of medicine, the expert must comply with the ethical, professional and legal obligations of doctors. Patient privacy and confidentiality of personal health information must be protected. Most, if not all, patients referred by their solicitors, or by the defendant medical indemnity body, will already feel betrayed and let down by the medical profession. They will be fearful and distrustful. On the other side, there is a clinician who fears reputational damage.

AI will disrupt the existing tort settlement. Tort law should be tech-impartial – that is, it should not encourage or discourage the adoption of new technologies where they generate the same level of risk, and victim rights should not be eroded by the use of new technologies in place of existing systems of work. Existing tort law is poorly suited to address some AI challenges, and a liability gap will emerge as systems replace employees since AI does not have legal personality and cannot commit a tort. A form of AI statutory vicarious liability should apply in commercial settings to address the liability gap and as the tech-impartial solution.

This chapter takes a psychological perspective on tort law decision-making, drawing on psychological theory, empirical research, and legal practices in tort litigation to assess the state of knowledge about decision-making in tort cases. It examines how plaintiffs decide to bring a lawsuit, how defendants respond, and the process of dispute resolution in tort cases. Most tort cases do not go to trial, but trial decisions remain significant as a framework for negotiations. The chapter also draws on psychological theory and research to describe how the judge and the jury as decision-makers resolve legal issues and reach liability verdicts and damage awards in tort cases. Psychological heuristics, biases, and other psychological phenomena affect decision-making in intentional tort, negligence, and strict liability cases, and judgments about liability and damages. The chapter closes with suggestions for further investigations of understudied topics in tort law decision-making.

Tort law is a compelling and dynamic area of law, affecting many aspects of individuals’ lives. A strong understanding of tort principles is important for legal practice, as lawyers may be required to represent clients in a range of tort disputes, from a physical altercation in a bar, to a fall in a supermarket or possibly the lowering of a client’s reputation through defamatory material posted on the internet. At its core, a tort is a civil wrong. Deriving from the Latin word tortum (‘wrong’), a tort is an act or omission that infringes upon the rights of individuals in society, allowing the aggrieved individual to seek a legal remedy.

Once a plaintiff has established that a duty of care is owed and has been breached and that the breach has resulted in damage the burden of proof then shifts to the defendant. In an action for negligence, the plaintiff’s claims can be defeated if the defendant can prove a relevant defence. The key defences to an action in negligence are the following:

• The plaintiff’s failure to take reasonable care of their own safety, or ‘contributory negligence’

• The plaintiff’s previous acceptance of the risk – their voluntary assumption of the risk created by the defendant’s conduct

• The plaintiff’s intoxication or willing undertaking of dangerous recreational or unlawful activities may operate as a defence in some jurisdictions. In others, it may be relevant to establishing that a breach has occurred

• Statutory defences, including the plaintiff’s delay in initiating proceedings

  A defendant who wishes to rely on one of these defences must: (1) plead these matters by filing a defence that raises the matters; and (2) produce evidence to prove them on the balance of probabilities. The defendant bears the onus of proving the defence.

This chapter covers the medical malpractice system: how it works, what its goals are, and how it influences provider behavior. The chapter begins by defining key terminology in tort law and explaining the process by which a medical malpractice case is brought and resolved, as well as the goals that this system is trying to achieve. Then discussion turns to how this system creates incentive for actions that run counter to its goals and the problems that are likely to arise, along with some empirical evidence of the existence of said problems.

This paper explores the relevance of the concept of revelation in Roman augury. Although augury is often regarded, not without reason, as being preoccupied with matters of narrow import and significance, it is a craft based on the detection and interpretation of divine signs, and thus builds into its operating process the question of the extent and quality to which the gods disclose to mankind their will and their attitudes. Revelation thus proves a productive vantage point on the workings of Roman augury, and more broadly of Roman public divination.

This chapter develops and critiques the major economic arguments in tort law, focusing mostly on the model of bilateral precaution, which attempts to analyze the foundational choice between negligence and strict liability. It also responds to “least-cost avoider” arguments and shows how little progress economic thinking has made in understanding most of tort law. The commonplace conclusion that tort law has easily succumbed to the law-and-economics movement is incorrect.

Chapter 10 identifies 21 variants of the good-faith purchase doctrine, which are often different combinations of several key factors. That said, none of the 21 schemes are the most efficient. Among the forms of good-faith purchase doctrine currently in use, the market overt rule comes closest to ex ante efficiency because original owners, merchant dealers, and consumers all have incentives to spend close to optimal costs on verification and prevention, and the movables in question are more likely to be in the hands of higher valuers. Drawing on mechanism design literature, Chapter 10 argues that when both an original owner and a consumer are non-negligent, the two parties can be assigned 50% shares of the movable in question, and an ensuing internal auction between them can ex post tease out who values the resource more. This internal auction design is inexpensive to administer.

Chapter 4 addresses the rising civil costs of dissent. It examines the various costs and liabilities that apply to protest organizers, participants, and supporters. These include permit fees, damages resulting from personal injury lawsuits, statutory penalty enhancements, and loss of public benefits. The chapter makes the case for stricter First Amendment scrutiny of these costs and argues that certain fee-shifting arrangements and civil causes of action violate the First Amendment. It encourages public officials to commit to reducing rather than piling on the costs of dissent.

The rapid development of mega-constellations raises difficult issues of international law, including liability for collisions involving satellites. Establishing ‘causation’ – that the actions of one satellite operator caused a specific collision with another space object and resulted in damage – could be a challenge, especially in the context of knock-on collisions where debris from an initial collision later collides with one or more spacecraft, including satellites. A further challenge is determining, in the absence of binding international rules on the design and operation of satellites, what is ‘reasonable’ behaviour and therefore what constitutes ‘negligence’. This chapter also addresses the interference to astronomy that is increasingly resulting from light and radio spectrum pollution from satellites. A full interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty leads to the conclusion that states are already required to take certain steps, including conducting an environmental impact assessment, before licensing mega-constellations, because of the obligation of ‘due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty’.

This chapter considers how someone can incur civil liability for their misconduct (whether intentional or otherwise) in a business setting. In particular, the tort of negligence, which concerns civil wrongs involving a failure to fulfil a duty of care owed to others, is discussed in depth. The chapter explains how a duty of care generally arises and can be breached in a variety of common commercial contexts. It also explains how another party might end up assuming responsibility for any physical or mental injuries or financial losses that occur. Other scenarios involving civil liability in business, such as where someone acts recklessly leading to another person being injured or killed, are also addressed.

Chapter 2 explained the main areas of the law, including the differences between civil and criminal law. This chapter will focus on one of the main parts of the civil law that is relevant for nurses: the law of negligence. The law of negligence allows a person to bring legal proceedings against another person to correct a wrong or harm that the other person has done to them. Usually the person who has been harmed (the plaintiff) will seek payment of money (called ‘damages’) in compensation for their injury from the person whose act or omission caused the harm (the defendant).

This chapter will outline the key parts of the law of negligence, with a particular focus on the special rules that have developed in relation to health-care professionals, including nurses. By understanding how the law applies to things nurses do that can cause people harm, it should be possible for nurses to better avoid acting negligently.

‘Negligence’ is frightening to think about, but accepting the possibility of making mistakes as lawyers does not mean we ought to give up on a desire to perform to the best of our ability, and at the peak of our moral consciousness. This chapter applies morality to our technical competence. In the hothouse atmosphere of competitive law firms, the underlying conflict between commercialism and professionalism leads to moral as well as financial risk. Only true professionalism – which emphasizes the dual virtues of integrity and competence – will sustainably support your future. Too much concentration on the business of law and profit can and does lead to the temptation to ‘borrow’ clients’ money and to carelessness. There are extensive conduct and accounting rules that focus on accounting honestly for clients’ money, especially for lawyers who practise across international borders, and we should back that up by arranging professional indemnity (malpractice) insurance against any negligence. In addition, risk management, continuing legal education and specialist accreditation courses are all available through the internet to support you, even if not available through a bar association

This chapter simplifies the complex multi-payer healthcare reimbursement market and explains how to position your product for successful reimbursement. The best time to bring reimbursement planning into the product development process is discussed here. The U.S. healthcare system is used as a baseline and the healthcare systems of other countries are reviewed briefly. Reimbursement for devices and administered drugs is based on many factors, and this chapter shows the steps a biomedical product company can take to maximize revenues in the US Healthcare system. The basics of reimbursement – coverage, coding, and payment – are explained in simple terms with diagrams. Case studies help show how individual companies have addressed the reimbursement process for novel breakthrough technologies.

International responsibility law today is in great need of theorizing or, at least, that is the present volume’s argument. This introduction sets the stage for that argument. It unfolds in four steps: first, it clarifies the reasons that led to putting this collection of essays together and explains what it hopes to achieve; second, it introduces the main theoretical challenges addressed in the volume; third, it provides some information about how the book is organized; and, finally, it sketches out the content of its successive chapters and their articulation.